


Uncommon Monsters

by afterandalasia



Series: Monsters, and Those That Hunt Them [2]
Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Action/Adventure, Awesome Leah Clearwater, Community: twispitefic, Gen, Minor Character Death, Native American Character, POV First Person, Post-Breaking Dawn, Protectiveness, Sparklepires, Supernatural Elements, Twilight Spitefic, Vampire Slayer(s), Violence, Werewolves, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, original character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 17:39:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My name is Leah Clearwater. I'm a werewolf, and I hunt vampires. It's a long story, twisted, downright fucked up. And this was where it nearly ended."</p><p>It may not be the best of lives, but at least Leah Clearwater has figured this one out: hunt down vampires, kill them, and move on. Don't expect thanks, and don't wait around for revenge. </p><p>But occasionally, things don't go to plan. Suddenly, Leah finds herself facing what might be the most rational vampire she's ever met... and too late, she realises that might have distracted her from a far larger danger.</p><p> </p><p>Sequel to 'To Catch a Monster', set two years later, but can be read independently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncommon Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a sequel to the werewolfbigbang fic To Catch A Monster, and designed to be part of a series of three. My thanks to my friends K and H for listening to my rambling ideas again, and to the folks over at twispitefic for getting me into Twilight fandom and introducing me to the awesomeness that is Leah Clearwater.
> 
> This fic is set about two years after To Catch A Monster, and about seven years after Breaking Dawn. It takes a slightly deeper look at some of the parts of canon which confuse and/or interest me, and does include a look at the fundamental moral problem of being a vampire in the Twilight world: killing people.

My name is Leah Clearwater. I’m a werewolf, and I kill vampires.

It’s a long story, twisted. Downright fucked up.

And this was where it nearly ended, shivering and sweating in the passenger seat of a beat-up Chevy with bite marks sending poison-red streaks up and down my skin and my vision going black. The woman in the seat next to me had one arm across my chest to hold me up, the other on the wheel.

“Hold on, Leah,” she said. Almost sang, the way that her voice trickled over me. Or maybe that was the sweat rolling down my skin. My head lolled forwards, but she pushed me back again, hard enough for me to bang my head on the back of the seat and give an unimpressed grunt. “Just a few more miles. Hold on.”

Rain was pounding on the windscreen, but I felt as if the sun was burning on my skin. The shivering turned to fast tremors, my heart racing in my chest, fluttering underneath my skin. My stomach heaved; coughs wracked my body, turning into heaves that splattered blood onto my lap.

“Shit! Come on, Leah. Stay with me!”

Her words floated into wordless music as my vision blurred worse, and then the world faded into black.

 

 

 

 

 

 I stuck my bare feet on the dashboard, stretched out, and tilted my head a little way out of the window. The sun was rising, navy sky gradually filling with creeping light. The tops of the trees became visible against the sky, turned into silhouettes, then became fragmented as individual leaves showed themselves to my sharpened eyes.

Cold air rolled in through my open window, but it wasn’t enough to make me shiver. I wasn’t sure that there was a place on the planet cold enough for that. Late last night, on the frigid air, I had caught the stench of vampire in the air, followed it to within sight of a small city, and kicked back to wait until morning made my job easier. True, people would be up and about, doing normal human things and living normal human lives. But most vampires were so scared of their leaders that they wouldn’t dare risk coming out in daylight. No, daylight definitely made my hunting easier.

I drove slowly downtown, taking my time at lights and intersections, getting a feel for the city as well as getting used to the rolling smell of leech that stank up the air. Usually, I hunted in big cities, but I had been passing through and the smell had caught my attention. It was easy enough to park up in the centre, shrug on a jacket over the thoroughly disposable leggings and shirt that I was wearing, and sling my usual bag over my shoulder. Coming up on six years now, and I’d gotten this down to an art.

It had gotten to the point that I could distinguish between the smells of different vampires. They all reeked, of course, sweet and cold and rotting, but there were little different tones that came through, and I was pretty sure that I could smell two different leeches here. My lip curled; probably a mated pair. A little more difficult to deal with, but I’d had practice with them as well.

I picked up a bottle of water from a kiosk, swilling it around my mouth to try and get rid of the smell of vampire so strong that it felt like a taste, as I wandered around the parks. Fairfield was a pretty place, a quaint little city surrounded by farmland and with some pretty old buildings to fill it up. The clock tower struck seven as I wandered along a path.

Two smells, two vampires. One was fainter, but more widespread, like a cloud spread over the entire city. It was marginally less offensive, though it still made me want to bury my face in a lavender bush to scour it out of my lungs. The other was stronger, more directional, more like the tracks that I was used to following. I mentally flipped a coin, though there was probably some bias when I chose the second one, checked which way the trail led, and started to follow it.

The city was waking up, and nobody noticed another young woman in nondescript clothes making her way down the streets, glancing around as she went. Tourist, student, visitor; it didn’t really matter. I was less interesting to them than they were to me; after all, I didn’t exactly have something for them to be jealous of.

I followed the trail through a distance of park, across a few roads, round a few shops. Most of the time it was comparatively thin, if still strong enough to feel like it was clogging up my throat; here and there I came across places where the vampire must have stopped, stood still, and the air thickened until I wanted to gag on the intensity of it.

It grew particularly bad in one little alley down the back of a row of houses, and I stopped to look around no matter how the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, no matter how much I wanted to run, or scream, or phase. Beneath the reek of vampire was the ever-present smell of humanity, dozens of people overlapping each other, people walking to and fro along this path. I closed my eyes, let the myriad scents surround me: sweat, perfume, washing powder, cigarettes, booze, piss, takeaway food, leather, garbage. Most of them were so faint that humans wouldn’t be able to smell them anyway, but for me they conjured ghosts of people in the air, a spectral crowd.

The blood was surprisingly faint beneath it. Or not so surprising for me, after all this time; with blood as addictive and intoxicating to vampires as it was, perhaps it was not so strange that they were careful not to miss a drop. Only the faintest smear on a wooden fence remained: a couple of drops, nothing more, brushed away but leaving a barely-visible stain behind. I crouched down to the same height as the blood stain, leant close, and breathed in deeply. Venom had met with the wood; the vampire must have licked off the stray drops of blood.

I grimaced in disgust as I rose to my feet again. The Cullens might be assholes, might be dangerous, but at least they didn’t murder people in alleys and lick their blood off the fences like animals. At least they’d learnt to _act_ like humans.

It didn’t matter now, though. The smell might pool here, but the vampire had not been for hours, and they must have taken the body with them as well. Under the cover of dark, and moving as fast as they did, it wasn’t too hard to picture. I hitched my bag higher and kept moving.

 

 

 

 

 

Another half an hour passed, the streets heading towards rush hour until it was easier to walk than it would have been to drive. I was a distance from my car by then, although after this long I had a good sense of direction to my name. The trail wrapped round, cross over South Main Street again, and into a small wooded area on the far side. I smiled coldly. Perfect land for animals like vampires... and like me.

The houses were quiet, and I couldn’t see anyone in the windows, but I moved from tree to tree until I was out of sight. I could hear people, but distantly, not too close, and the smell of vampire was growing stronger again. Almost too strong... I frowned as I realised that there were two scents, overlapping. And, beneath them, _blood_.

My heart beat faster in my chest. It would hardly be the first time that I’d been too late to stop a vampire claiming a meal, but it never got any easier. If it hadn’t taken me so long to track them... if I hadn’t waited until daytime... if, if, if.

“Fuck it,” I hissed between gritted teeth. I could feel anger boiling in me, the wolf growling in the back of my mind. Originally, my people had made their bargain to protect their families, the people that they love. All I had changed was that I called _people_ my family. _Humans_. And every vampire that killed them was going to answer to me, if the wolf had any say in the matter.

At the edge of my attention, muffled screaming. My head snapped round, and I began to move towards the sound, long loping steps that ate up distance silently. As I grew closer I heard singing, soft, like a lullaby used to hush a child. It grated on my skin.

Turning north; a house came into sight, a garage, but no sounds or signs of people. I slowed down as I drew closer, the smell of vampire almost overwhelming now. My bones ached beneath my skin, wanting to change to the form that was used to fighting vampires, the form that was built for it. But I wanted a human brain, a human mouth, a human shape. Take the vampire by surprise, hopefully.

The house was shut up, windows closed and silent, and I hoped that it meant the owners were off on vacation somewhere. The noise came from the garage: screaming, still muffled but clearly audible to me, and singing, clearly from a male vampire. I circled the garage: one entrance to the front, one normal plastic door to the side. I shrugged my bag off my shoulder, just outside the door, and took my sandals and jacket off to leave with it. Cricking my neck, one side then the other, and taking a deep breath to steady myself.

Then I reached out and tried the handle of the door.

Unsurprisingly, it was locked, shifting only half an inch in my hand. Inside, the singing stopped, and the screaming became even more muffled, as if a hand had been clamped over a gag already in place. From here, I could hear shifting, the squirming of a body against a solid surface, and I had to take another deep breath to keep back the anger in my head.

_Cold one danger dead one cold death anger danger kill rip KILL-_

Too angry. I was here to protect humans, above and before anything else. It was about the human here, not about the vampire. I stepped back, squared up, and kicked, slamming the heel of my foot into the door level with the lock. The door bucked, plastic buckling, and even as the pain in my foot faded I kicked again, sending the door flying open on its hinges.

Light flooded the room; I followed it, keeping my knees bent and my shoulders loose. I took in the scene in a moment: garage paraphernalia against the walls, a tied-up figure wriggling on the floor, and a vampire facing me. He was tall, powerfully built, with olive-tinged skin shimmering in the reflected sunlight as he snarled at me. Most vampires didn’t turn on me straight away, trying to talk me into leaving instead, but I supposed that having a captive on the floor and my smelling like nothing he’d ever come across before was tipping the other way with him.

“Creature,” he spat, derisive. My hackles rose – metaphorically, for now.

He lunged towards me, almost quicker than sight. One of my feet slid sideways, carrying me out of the line of his blow, bringing me outside his arm. I slammed the base of my hand into his chin, throwing his head back, then took his head in both hands and twisted. It didn’t snap in the way that a human’s would, but gave me enough leverage to throw him to the floor. The concrete cracked beneath the blow.

In a blink he was on his feet again, but I was already closing in, hands ready in fists. One connected with his chest, with a sound of cracking knuckles – mine – and a thump which knocked him back into a crouch again. His hand wrapped around my calf, tight as a vice, crushing flesh beneath his grip, and he lunged towards me with teeth bared, striking like a snake. My palm slapped against his cheek, turning his mouth away, and I followed it with the knee of the leg which he was not holding. It slammed into the side of his head, hard enough that even a vampire would feel it, and I was buzzing with enough adrenaline and anger not to care about how much it hurt to fight against living stone.

He spoke again, some language which I didn’t speak. Which I didn’t care for.

My hand clamped around the back of his neck, forcing him further towards the ground as his grip slipped from my leg. His face slammed into the ground; I repeated the move for good measure, grinding him against the concrete, as I moved to straddle his back. One of his arms was against his side, and I pinned it in place with my leg; the other I caught hold of, one hand on his head, one bending his wrist at an angle so unnatural that even a vampire would feel it.

“There,” I said, triumphantly, now that I didn’t need my breath for fighting. He tried to wriggle beneath me, but I tightened the grip of my legs, crushing his arm tighter against his ribs. And this time, I hadn’t even needed to turn wolf.

“What are you?” he said, an accent that I couldn’t quite identify marking his English, but not making it hard to understand. “A hybrid?”

I was impressed that he’d even heard of them; there were only a handful in the world. I gave a snort of laughter, and wrenched his arm to keep his attention on it as I leant forward slightly over him. “Far from it. One of those humans that your kind think is so disposable... with a little edge that you didn’t expect.”

All these years, and I’d never gotten over the fact that the vampires seemed to see us as nothing more than food, free-range cattle bought up to serve their needs. If I had reason to believe that vampires had infiltrated every government in the world to turn us into their private food supply, I would probably have been impressed. They didn’t seem to have that level of organisational ability between the lot of them.

I wrestled his spare arm underneath me, despite his protests, and wrapped both hands around his head, pressing my fingers tightly into his scalp. “Now. Where is your mate?”

“Mate?”

I ground his face into the concrete again, just to make the point. “Yes,” I spat. “Your mate. I can smell the other one around this city.”

“She’s not my _mate_ ,” he replied, as if he honestly thought that telling me was going to let me spare him. I didn’t know how old he was, but I knew full well that the average vampire could kill hundreds of people a year. “She’s a native, stays here. I asked permission to hunt on her land.”

“And she gave it to you. How civil.”

He laughed, the sound squashed where my hand still pinned him down. “As if. I was going to move on soon, anyway.”

My lip curled as he laughed. _Laughing_ , after the people that he had killed, the person that he had tied up to carry off like some sort of packed lunch. “Well, I can fix that for you,” I said.

Then I twisted, wrenching his hard so hard that this time, his neck did split, and came away in my hands. I dropped it to the side, half-threw, not wanting to keep it in my hands any longer, before rising to my feet. Prone and slack, his body didn’t look like anything special, save for where the sunlight cut a line across his bare ankle and left it shattering rainbows across the room. I kicked the offending foot out of the way and turned back to the tied-up figure.

The fact that they were still alive surprised me. Twice in two years, then, it seemed that I was going to rescue someone. It was a young man, dark-haired, sharp-featured. He had been efficiently hog-tied, fabric stuffed into his mouth and taped in place. I tucked my hair back and bent down, intended to pull him free, when I realised that his twitching was uncontrolled, spasmodic, and that his eyes were rolled closed. Frowning, I put two fingers to his neck, and felt his pulse fluttering, racing beneath his throat. A hundred and fifty beats a minute, more, uncontrollably fast. And his skin was burning hot, even to me, like fire beneath my touch.

It was then that I saw the tear in his shirt over his chest, the wound over his heart, stark and bloodless teeth marks in a neat oval.

Bitten, and turning. I drew away, nervously, not at all sure what to do. Vampires, I killed. Humans, I protected. But this man was somewhere in between the two, not yet a vampire and not yet having killed anyone to earn my hatred. I had no right to kill him, but I couldn’t leave him by himself; it seemed that, left to their own devices, some little voice started up in vampires’ heads that turned them into the monsters that I found.

There were no vampires that I _liked_. Even the Cullens I could hardly stand, and they were the least terrible that I had come across. I was probably two days from Forks by car, and from what I’d heard the change from human to vampire lasted about the same length of time. If I was going to see this young man with any other vampires, it would be the Cullens; perhaps he would stand a chance of not becoming the sort of monster that I worked so hard to kill.

Perhaps.

In any case, I was going to have to bring my van out here to deal with them both. One dead vampire to dispose of, one vampire-in-the-making to transport elsewhere. Another particularly bad day. I rubbed my eyes with my fingertips and sighed, wondering how it was that survivors had become more difficult to deal with than vampires. It reminded me of another day, in another state a long way off from this; a man whom I had kept from being harmed at all, and his daughter who still at times haunted my dreams. I hoped that this incident wasn’t going to have as far-reaching a set of repercussions.

Just as I was about to leave again, I heard footsteps outside, and froze. They were very quiet, from a light-footed person, but there nonetheless. Steps – and then silence, stillness. I held my breath and crept closer to the door, slowly clenching and unclenching my fists.

The smell hit me about a moment later: sweeter, gentler, but still sharp with rot. The other vampire had just arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

I wished, abruptly, that I had closed the door behind me when I entered the garage. Rather late to be worrying about that, though. I inched towards it, cursing lying vampires and their mate bonds, but before I could close it, a shadow fell across the doorway.

A female vampire, willowy, not only swathed from head to toe in black but with a niqab hiding her features. Without the smell, even I would not have recognised her. Clever, I had to admit, even as I half-crouched and coiled to spring in the moment that she realised that I was a threat.

“You must know what I am,” she said, abruptly, her voice low for a vampire although it remained musical. Strange, how such creatures have such beautiful voices. “So this is not needed.”

One hand flew up and whipped away the veil across her face, faster than a blink. Cloth removed, her vampire features were revealed: the unnatural whiteness, smoothness, symmetry. It was none of that which caught me so utterly by surprise – my gaze went straight to her eyes.

Her _gold_ eyes.

I straightened up, knowing full well that I was staring. As far as I knew, the only golden-eyed vampires in the world were the Cullens and the strange female vampires that had come down for Bella and Edward’s wedding. This woman was not one of _them_. And yet she had the eyes, the less-repulsive smell.

“If you are no killer,” I said sharply, “then I have no argument with you.”

“You aren’t like a normal human.” Her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air, then winced and drew back. “It smells of blood in here. Please, talk to me outside.”

It was her calm that had me reeling, the fact that she could walk into a garage with a decapitated vampire, a half-changed human, and a werewolf ready for a fight, and still talk as calmly as if she was ordering lunch at a café. As she turned away, she raised her veil again, hiding her glittering skin beneath black fabric, and stepped away from the door. I followed, still cautious.

"I don’t know what you are,” she continued, still calmly, clasping her hands in front of her and regarding me with a slightly tilted head. “But I have no desire to hurt you. Did you kill that nomad in the garage?”

I gritted my teeth, refusing to reply, and folded my arms across my chest. It was defensive, and I knew it, but I still wasn’t sure where I stood with her yet.

“I was coming here to remove him from my land. I do not kill, and I do not like those who do. I would fight them myself, if I had the strength to do so, but the only one I have tried to fight almost killed me. I was coming to ask him to leave.”

“Did you think that he would?”

The pause before she spoke was only noticeably long because she was a vampire. “I don’t know, but I hoped so.”

Every werewolf instinct screamed to attack her, but I kept the fury reigned in as I looked at her coldly. I wished that I could see her face; even vampires had to give things away in their expressions sooner or later. But I appreciated that she had found a way to mask herself among humans.

“Yes, I killed the nomad. It’s what I do. Protecting humans, technically, but that means getting rid of vampires.”

“Do you consider me a threat?” she asked, voice still surprisingly calm.

I had to take a deep breath before answering. “Not right now. Have you ever killed a human?”

A fast, hard shake of her head. “No! No...” she collected herself, seeming truly horrified at the suggestion. I cocked my head slightly to the side, letting my raised eyebrows speak for my surprise. That was a new opinion to hear from the mouth of a vampire. “I did not know that most vampires did until I met another one. Did not even know that I was a vampire until I did. Of course, humans smell... well, doubtless you know what the smell does. But just because I could eat humans never seemed to mean that I must.”

Now it wasn’t just my eyebrows. My jaw had dropped slightly, mouth falling slackly open, as I stared at her. Even my arms uncrossed and fell to my sides. I had never _heard_ such rational thoughts from one of her kind.

“Humans can eat humans,” she said, with a slight shrug, a palms-up gesture of her hands. “But they think of it as a horror. Why should it be any different for me?”

“You said that you didn’t realise that you were a vampire,” I said carefully.

“No. Not at first. When I awoke, I felt two things: relief to be alive, and the terrible burn in my throat, worse than any thirst I had ever experienced. I began to realise that things were wrong with me... that I did not breathe, my heart was still. What happened in the sun.” A wave of her hand towards the sky. “But vampire? Who would ever think of that?”

“The one who turned you wasn’t there.”

Another shake of the head.

“Then nobody told you that you _were_ a vampire.” It made sense, in a strange sort of way. The stories that humans had were wrong in so many ways that it amazed me that vampires thought they would ever be known for what they were. It seemed like all they had was immortality and a taste for blood. Oh, and being dead compared to any normal animal. I looked round, towards the garage. “Look, I’m sorry to cut this short, but I need to sort these two out. The nomad needs to be burned. And there’s a human in there, who... won’t be a human much longer. He’s turning.”

“I can wait. After all,” and I can hear the amusement in her voice. “I have all the time in the world.”

Technically, so do I, but I try not to linger on the fact that as long as I keep phasing, I will never grow old, never get to move on. It feels like it’s going to be an easy trap to fall into, living and fighting forever, if I’m not careful. Right now, however, I was more worried about the human-becoming-vampire in the garage, and however little I wanted to trust this female – this _woman_ – I probably had to. With a grim nod, I grabbed my things from outside the garage, and closed the door as best I could considering I had kicked it in. The woman moved into the shadow of the building and folded her hands to her lap, bowing her head as if becoming a statue.

I frowned, but turned to go. There wasn’t much else that I could do.

 

 

 

 

 

My beat-up Chevy felt out of place in this nice neighbourhood, but I held myself confidently and moved like I knew exactly where I was going. One of the few advantages of my sex: I was less likely to be stopped whilst driving. My sense of direction led me straight to the house, where I pulled up and parked neatly outside the garage.

The smell of vampire assailed me as I opened the door again and swung myself out. I had a tarp to throw over the back, but there were only two seats with and a half-changed victim was hardly going to sit nicely in place. I wasn’t sure whether what I did was outright illegal – did it count as murder when vampires were already dead? – but I didn’t want to have to run into the police and find out. Maybe I should ask Charlie, if I ever visited Forks again.

I was surprised to see that the woman was waiting outside the garage, standing in the shade. “You’re still here.” I said flatly.

She nodded, and I thought that I heard a fast-suppressed ripple of laughter. “I told you that I would wait.”

Her lightness, her amusement, irritated me in a way not all that different from how the other vampire’s laughter had. With a grunt, I grabbed my roll of trash bags and the larger sports bag, and took them into the garage with me.

The vampire still lay on the floor, his head some feet away and at a surreal angle. With no blood, just shattered stone-like flesh, it made him look more like a broken statue than something that had actually been able to fight me. I was frowning in his direction when the other man, who had momentarily been still, started to thrash within his bounds and scream again. I jumped, spinning to face him, only to be met with brown eyes that were pinpointing with red, like blood leaking through. His face was red, straining, neck corded with effort as he threw his head back and tried to scream with a throat that had to have long since gone raw.

There was nothing that I could do for him just yet. I quickly broke down the vampire into smaller pieces, double-bagged them so that they could not join back together, and packed them into the sports bag. Over my shoulder, at least a hundred and sixty pounds of stone that never seemed to get any better, and then I went to take the pieces over to the car.

The woman appeared at my side. “Would you like some help?”

I went to say no, but one of her hands had already wrapped beneath the bag and taken most of the weight off my abused shoulder. My pride stopped me from thanking her, but it was much easier with an extra pair of hands, especially ones easily as strong as mine, to get the bag into the back of the truck where the smell wouldn’t fill the cabin.

“I’m not sure what to do with the other one,” I admitted. “Wait... you said that you lived here? In a house?”

“Well, not in a hole in the ground.”

I could feel myself flushing with embarrassment – and anger. “It’s unusual for vampires, anyway,” I said, as gruff as my father used to get when he didn’t want to talk about something. “Living in one place.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I was strange as a human, and that made me strange as a vampire.”

Sounded about as logical as anything I’d ever heard out of a leech’s mouth. “Come on then, give me a hand with the other one. Let’s see if we can get him into the back and get the tarp over him. I take it that you’ll want him back at yours?” I was expecting either a protest or silence, so when she didn’t say no, I started to move towards the garage door again. I was standing just in front of it, hand outstretched to push the door open again, before I realised something. “So, ah, what’s your name?”

“Janan. Well, that’s the name I have now, anyway.”

“Leah Clearwater,” I replied. “As it’s always been. Shit, I wish I hadn’t made this much mess...”

Even with the turning... _person_ removed, the concrete floor of the garage was cracked, the door was broken, and my fingerprints were going to be everywhere. There wasn’t much that I could do about the damage, although I straightened out the door as much as I could, but for the most part I wiped away my fingerprints and made sure that there was no other trace around. Hopefully I would be long gone by the time that the owners of the house would only report to the police to claim a new door on their insurance. But I hadn’t gotten through this many years by pushing my luck.

Janan was waiting outside for me, standing in that creepy, frozen way that vampires do when they don’t have to concentrate on looking like humans. I tugged open the passenger door, all but growled at her to get inside, and slumped into my own seat.

Having a vampire in the back was bad enough, but having one in the cab with me made me want to retch. I rolled down my window before I even turned on the engine, and mercifully Janan did the same. Once I started moving, it was easier, with the wind carrying off at least some of the smell before it cloyed in my nostrils.

I didn’t speak, and was unhappy at Janan for leaning over to speak until I realised that she was giving me directions. I followed them blindly, not looking beyond the next intersection or set of lights, until finally she directed me to turn into the driveway of a house.

The tunnel vision cleared as I looked it. The house was... nice. Moderately sized plot, new house, blinds at the windows and a well-kept garden. “This is your house,” I said flatly.

I couldn’t see Janan’s glare through her veil, but I was pretty sure that I could feel it.

“The only other sedentary vampires that I’ve found had a... pretty fancy place,” I settled for. “Big, painted white, middle of nowhere. Probably worth millions.”

“Well, sadly a normal wage doesn’t run to that. Even without the need for food or most groceries.” She climbed out of the truck, only to step out and open up the garage door and wave me in. I supposed that it would be better than dragging out the turning person in the middle of the road. The garage door slid closed behind us, and once again she let her veil drop to reveal her features. They were too still, too perfect, but with any vampire I would rather have them where I could see them. “I’ve got a fireplace in the back room, but that would be better waiting until after dark. We could at least get the other one under cold water, though.”

I climbed out of the car, but hesitated before closing the door and looked round to her. It was strange beyond words to not have to explain the world I lived in to the person that I was talking to. Stranger still that she might know some parts of it better than I did.

“Will that help?”

She shrugged, an elegant movement. “I don’t know. I don’t remember much of when I was turning, except for the heat. The fire. It was... I have still never felt anything like it. If there is anything that I could do to help him, then I will.”

Again, sense from the mouth of a vampire. Any minute, I was going to wake up, I was sure of it. “Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s... let’s do that.”

She reached into the back of the truck and removed the figure before I could react, holding him as easily as if he were made of foam rather than flesh and bone. Though perhaps his flesh was changing to stone already. Janan cradled the man in her arms, as if he were a child, holding him tightly even as he struggled against the ropes around him and her hold.

She nodded towards the door to the house, and I opened it without thinking. The smell of vampire hit me like a wall, like a punch straight to the stomach that made my throat jolt and for a moment I was sure that I would vomit. I took a couple of slow breaths, getting used to the strength of the smell even if it would not get less terrible, and then stepped in. I knew that Janan would have seen the pause and doubtless knew what it meant.

I knew also that I would smell pretty terrible to her, and that she was handling it a lot better than I was. The reminder bought a flash of anger from the wolf inside me, but the human held it back and forced me to walk.

I found myself in a surprisingly normal kitchen. Small, but neat, with fresh flowers in the window and glasses set out to drain beside the sink. A glance to the left revealed the sitting room, with couches and a television and so much normality that I felt like the world was turning over and I hadn’t quite managed to get a handhold. As I stepped towards the nearest couch, Janan swept past me in a fluid sweep.

“Take a seat,” she suggested, her voice calm and welcoming still. “I will be back in a moment.”

Dispensing with human speeds, she disappeared from the room; I heard her footsteps on the stairs, an opening door, and then the sound of a running shower. I couldn’t tell whether or not it was making any difference to the man that she was placing under it. After a moment’s hesitation, I sank into the couch, and had to admit that it was comfortable.

My head sunk into my hands and I tried to take deep breath, despite the fact that it only filled my lungs with the smell of vampire. My life, although not easy, had a simplicity about it. Track down a vampire, kill them, dispose of the body. Rinse and repeat. I couldn’t say that I necessarily liked it, but I knew it well and I supposed that I had chosen it, in a way. As if I was Buffy the fucking vampire Slayer or something. But there were no ‘Watchers’, no line of Slayers, no history for this. As if vampires had just been allowed to _get away with it_ for the whole of history. I doubted that was actually possible to make a difference after that, but there you were. Like Canute trying to hold back the tide.

The problem was, every once in a while, that my life didn’t follow the simple plan of hunt, kill, clean. The times when I found a human body and the best that I had thought of to do was to arrange an accident scene, to give their families some sort of closure. The times when I went in, expecting one vampire, and finding myself facing a coven.

The time that I saved a man called Julian Annable, and met his daughter Sonia.

I still saw her face in my dreams, sometimes. More often than I would admit to. I still woke up with the scent of her in my nose and the sound of her voice in my ears. I still kept the card that she had given me, grimy and worn around the edges, tucked into the driver’s side pocket of my Chevy. I knew that I should have either thrown it away or contacted her again months ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to drop the weight of imprinting on either of us. As long as I stayed away, I could protect us both from what had happened.

The racing thoughts in my head were replaced with the mental image of her. Two years ago; anyone else’s face would have been a blurry memory by now. Even Julian would only get a vague description from me. Sonia, though, I remembered in crystal detail. I could see the way that her brown eyes, points of green bright in them, focused on me, still warm with gratitude; the way that her lips stretched into a smile, a little dimple appearing on her right cheek; the warm glow of her skin and the flush in her cheeks; the way that she leaned forward in her doorway, eager and friendly, even as I had shied away from her. I must have been a terrible sight, ragged and rough round the edges, wearing old clothes and sandals even in the questionable weather. Living out of my truck might have been an art, but I couldn’t call it a fine one. And there had been no recognition in her eyes of anything other than the fact that I had saved her father, and then I was there before her.

Face in my hands, I breathed in, expecting the fresh fragrance of her skin and perfume together. Instead, I got a nose full of vampire, which made me immediately sneeze and snapped me back to reality.

It was well-timed. I looked up just as Janan appeared in the doorway again, fast as a movie special effect, her hands clasped mildly in front of her. She was still wearing her loosely-flowing clothes, and had a tension about her.

“Is it helping?” I forced myself to ask.

“I don’t know,” Janan replied. “But I hope so.”

She moved across the room, fast but not at maximum speed, and into the kitchen for a moment. When she reappeared, she was holding two glasses and a pitcher of water

“Here,” she said, pouring one glass and setting it on the coffee table in front of me. Retreating to one of the chairs at an angle to me, she folded her hands into her lap and settled her gaze.

I had never liked having vampires look at me. They didn’t blink, and they didn’t do those microscopic eye movements that are natural as humans take in a whole scene. The result was like a camera, or a painting. Unsettling.

“I’m sorry to have bought this upon you,” I blurted out. To even my own surprise, I meant it: dumping a turning or newborn vampire on someone’s lap was the last thing that I wanted to do to anyone. And, somehow, Janan’s words and actions were making her seem more human to me than any vampire I had previously met. “You didn’t ask for this.”

“And I’m sure that you didn’t ask to be... whatever you are,” replied Janan. “Can I ask what that is?”

I cough of laughter forced its way out of me. “A shapeshifter. I’m still human, but... well, my tribe says that it’s a matter of magic, that somewhere in the past we made a deal with the ancestors. I’m not sure what I think of that.”

“And how does this... shapeshifting manifest?”

“As a wolf.” I examined the glass of water, picking it up and rolling it slowly between my hands, and waited for a long moment before I looked back to Janan. “We’re not werewolves, though. It’s... nothing like the legends. We’re still human, so we say shapeshifters.”

“We?”

This time, I felt a bristle of anger and wariness. “Yes, there are others. But I’d rather not talk about them, especially without their permission.”

I could feel the bite in my voice, the tensing of the muscles in my shoulders and core. It took concentration not to crush the glass between my hands. I may have run solo, but they were still my pack, my brothers – one in blood, the rest simply because of who and what we were. I did not fancy handing over knowledge about them to any vampire, even one who seemed to have some actual morals to speak of.

“All right. So you are a shapeshifter... but a human.”

“Faster, stronger, a quicker healer.” I nodded tightly. “But yes, I am a human.” There was almost an unspoken dare in my voice – try to claim that I am something else, and I will fight you for my right to be human. Draw my blood, and it will say that I am... I think. I had never actually found out for certain. “What about you?”

“Well, you know that I’m not human,” she said, a little too lightly for my taste. She leant forward, poured herself a glass of water as well, and lifted it to sip. “I don’t remember much of being human, either. The first thing that I really remember is the pain of turning. It was so intense, it drove everything else out, like it was scouring my brain. It seemed to last forever... and then suddenly, it was gone.”

I had spoken to the Cullens before, and they tended to give me variations on the same story. I was more interested in the water at her lips than the words, at least in that moment.

“When I opened my eyes, it was like... being a child, almost, except in this incredible body. You know those stories of feral children, who grow up acting like the animals that raised them?” She cocked her head at me for an answer, and I nodded. “I suppose that it must be a little like that. But I didn’t have anything else about, so for a while I just lay there, looking at myself, trying to work out what was going on. Something told me: human. And then I remembered what a human was, I suppose, and thought that I must be one of them.

“Compared to the pain, the thirst was nothing, at least at first. I don’t know how long I sat there. Perhaps most of the night. Then I realised that something was wrong with my throat, that it hurt, that it wanted something in it.”

Despite myself, I was actually interested. Although I had panicked when I first became enraged and turned into a wolf, I at least had my mind still, and others to explain to me what was happening.

“I was in a wooded area – pine trees, I know now – and there was snow on the ground. It didn’t feel cold; nothing ever does. But something flickered in my brain, and I put it in my mouth. It didn’t really help, not a lot, but it... well, it’s hard to describe. It took an edge off. Now, I’d say that it was like putting a compress on a wound. It doesn’t stop the bleeding – the thirst – but it holds it back so that you have a chance.

“I heard something: running water. I ran to it – knowing that I was moving fast, but not sure what I was comparing that to – and tried drinking it. It was a little better than the snow. Then there was a noise, upstream and upwind, and this smell filled me. I can’t remember being human to compare it. But it was like every part of my body set on fire when I smelled it, like it took over my brain. Without thinking, I threw myself at it, sank my teeth into it, tearing at the meat.

“It was a raccoon, as it turned out. But I didn’t realise that, at least at first. At first, I was tearing at the meat, thinking that was what I wanted, but then I found myself just sucking instead, and finally my mouth found an artery. I drank the blood, and... again, it’s hard to describe. It was such a relief that I wanted to cry, only to realise that I couldn’t. It wasn’t enough – my throat was still ragged, raw – but it helped. I could think.”

My fascination in her words had not dimmed, but something in the back of my mind whispered that perhaps this was just luck. Had there been humans nearby, perhaps she would have fed on one of them first, and followed a different path. There was a simplicity to her words, but a clarity, and I was reminded again that vampires had photographic memories. Those first moments would be in her mind forever, never fading or blurring with time.

“So drinking the blood of animals was your answer,” I concluded. Janan gave a gentle nod, otherwise perfectly still in her chair. In the momentary silence that followed, I could still hear muffled screaming and moving from upstairs, and hoped that any neighbours either would not hear or would presume it was just a television. “Nobody ever told you about humans.”

“Or vampires. As I said, I thought that I was human, in as much as I knew what a human was. I had faint memories of being this shape, and moving in something like this way, and making sounds with my mouth. Anything beyond that was fuzzy, then, though I think it’s become a little better over time. I had a feeling that I was somehow wrong, though, and when the light first touched me... I thought it was going to burn me.

“It sounds strange now,” she said, a touch of laughter in her voice as she leant back in her chair. I knew that vampires didn’t need comfort, but perhaps she liked the sensation, or the movement. “I mean, I suppose the sparkling could be considered beautiful. But everything that I see is in such detail – the veins on leaves, the threads in fabric, motes of dust in the air. So when I had looked at my skin, and seen this smooth surface, very finely-grained, more like basalt than the skin I saw on animals, it was fascinating. I spent ages, that first night – well, it seemed like ages, but a tenth of a second feels like a solid chunk of time, I suppose – just looking at the tiny places on my skin where the hairs came out, the way that the surface was made up of tiny crystal structures that all seemed to lie flat to give the illusion of smoothness. My clothes were already ripped, but I accidentally ripped them more trying to understand my skin.

“Maybe it was minutes, maybe it was hours. But I thought that I was done staring at my skin, only to have one of my hands enter sunlight. It was like an explosion in my eyes, more colours than I had ever seen suddenly appearing at once. I simply couldn’t understand it, as if there wasn’t room in my brain. Once I stopped panicking, I put just the very tip of my little finger back into light, and spent a long time trying to get used to all of the colours, all of the different wavelengths of light that I was seeing. Slowly I put more and more of my hand in, having to stop quite often so that I could handle it all. I wouldn’t say that it was frightening, but it was overwhelming – and it felt wrong to me, as if I’d never seen anything like it.”

When I had first seen a vampire in full sunlight, it had been all that I could do not to laugh. Perhaps it was different when you did not know what to expect, and were in some ways just a few hours old.

“I’m not sure why I hid from humans. The smell of cities, even towns or villages, was just too overwhelming for me. The noises that they made, and the smells around them, were too much. It was some time before I actually smelled human, and my mind went wild again, but I was just distant enough for it to frighten me that I was losing control, and flee. Eventually, through practice, I came to be able to come close to humans, then to be around them – out of the sunlight, of course. I was realising that I was something different, but I still didn’t know what I was. So, for a while, I suppose that I was a little frightened of humans.”

It was probably unfortunate that I had, earlier in her words, given in and taken a drink of water. It tasted very _clean_ , probably filtered, and was cool enough to settle my spinning head and jolting stomach. Unfortunate, however, because I was trying to drink when she said that _she_ was scared of _humans_ , and it made me snort so hard that water actually came out my nose.

I hadn’t done that since I was twelve.

I put my hand over my nose and mouth, still trying not to choke, and looked round to Janan. She looked at shocked as I felt: wide eyes, raised brows, parted lips.

“Are you all right?”

“The nuh-” I broke off, still coughing water away, then continued as my voice changed from strangled to normal. “The number of vampires that I have met who talk about humans as only slightly more dangerous than newspaper... that’s new. That’s really new. I have never heard a vampire say that they were scared of humans.

She blinked, just once. “I didn’t know what I was, didn’t know how I compared to them. In some ways, even now and knowing what I am, I _am_ still afraid of humans. They outnumber vampires millions to one, they have structure, government, military. They are intelligent, innovative. They change. In only thirty years the world has changed massively – I cannot imagine what it would be like for those vampires I have heard of who are hundreds or even thousands of years old. Who knows what would happen if humans discovered vampires?” Her gaze bored into me. “Or perhaps I should say: what would the rest of your species do about vampires? You seem to have decided what you will do to us.”

I had personally killed thirty-three vampires in just over six years. Multiply that by the twenty or so other shifters that there were back on the reservations, and we would be looking at six to seven hundred vampires. I wasn’t that sure if there were even that many in the whole country.

“It would be easy to trigger an all-out war,” I said quietly. She nodded. And whilst it might look at first like humans would sweep through vampires like nothing, vampires could very easily multiply. Multiply on a _vast_ scale. I had heard of newborn armies, but I had had nightmares of modern-day ones, hundreds or even thousands of vampires strong. Those were not pleasant nights. With another deep breath, I pushed the thought aside. To my surprise, it was indeed getting easier to deal with the smell of a vampire’s house. “So, how did you find out about vampires?”

“A nomad came through, in the middle of one night. I was starting to do better by then, volunteering to walk dogs or do yard work for money from humans – the way I looked, and wore my hair, I looked very young then – and wearing clothes and having money. In some ways I interacted better with humans when I didn’t have to be around them all the time, and wasn’t _dependent_ on anybody, even for food. In any case, this nomad came through, and he came to talk to me, out of interest I suppose. He told me what I was, and... talked about eating humans.”

“How did you reply?”

“I was horrified.”

She sounded slightly shocked, perhaps even slightly offended, that I had asked. I couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief at the words, although I wasn’t so sure that I was ready to put them into the wider picture just yet.

“Sorry,” I said quietly. “I just had to be sure that was the case. Most vampires... think very differently.”

Carlisle Cullen, who claimed to have never killed a single human – except for the ones that he turned, of course – and yet sat by and forgave when his ‘children’ wreaked havoc. Rosalie Hale, who had killed even if she had not tasted blood. And all of the other Cullens, who had killed and drunk and come back _expecting_ to be forgiven for it.

“So do some humans,” Janan replied, voice tight.

Well, I couldn’t argue with that. I took another sip of water, wiped my mouth, and tried to think of something better to turn the conversation to. Luckily, as she placed her glass back onto the coffee table, Janan seemed to be thinking much the same.

“So, Leah, you might well know more about vampires than I do. Why don’t you tell me what you know, and perhaps we can... share some information?

 

 

 

 

 

I told her about the vampires that I had killed. I told her about the Cullens, who she seemed far more interested in, particularly how they had come to eating animals. It was not until she started asking little questions – their ages, how long they lived in any given area, how they interacted with other vampires – that I realised I only knew anything at all about the Cullens. Although I had, very briefly, met their ‘cousins’ from Denali who also did not – currently – consume humans, I had kept away from any red-eyed vampires and had met only with the newborn army from Seattle and the multiple ones that I had killed over the years.

“You know,” I could not helping say at one point, “you remind me of someone that I used to know. He... talked about things like this, as well.”

She smiled, and I could see why she said that she could look very young under the right circumstances. Then, forcibly pushing aside thoughts of Julian, I continued answering her questions.

Although she kept a few packets of cookies and snacks, in case she had visitors, Janan did not have much food in her house. She did, however, offer to pay for take-out, and I sat cross-legged on the floor eating an obscene amount of pizza as the sky outside darkened. I’d certainly learnt never to turn down free food in the last few years. Once it became truly dark, she drew the curtains, disappeared upstairs to turn off the shower and switch the man to a cold bath, and re-emerged wearing a hijab but not the full black burkha that she had before. I looked up in surprise, polishing off the last piece of garlic bread as I did so.

“I prefer to keep it on,” she said, “even if I don’t have to, around other women. I find it comforting.”

“Actually, I was going to say the opposite. I thought that you were wearing it... just to disguise yourself from people.”

Janan froze for a moment, then tilted her head to regard me before crossing back to the chair and settling into it again. “Then I’m guessing that the vampires you’ve met before also didn’t have much in the way of faith. True, I dress more conservatively because it works to my advantage, but it does not undermine my beliefs.”

Once again, her words gave me pause. “Sorry,” I said, feeling deep in my bones that I meant it. “Though you’re right. When I think of the vampires that I’ve known, neither ‘rational’ nor ‘religious’ comes particularly high on the list.”

“I think that I would be interested in meeting these... acquaintances of yours,” she said, and even I didn’t miss how sharp of a change of subject that was. “The Cullens. You say that there are an entire coven of them?”

“Yes, though that’s strange. You probably noticed, but most of those other vampires? Groups of three at the most. Usually just one or two of them together,” I said. I was vaguely aware of illustrating some of my sentences with waves of the pizza crust in my left hand, but didn’t much care. It honestly felt good to talk to someone about these sort of things, when most of the world was entirely unaware of what was happening in isolated pockets of land. “The Cullens, though – well, with Nessie, there are nine of them now. At one point, there were six in Denali. That’s as big of a family unit as most humans can handle, and when our packs get to about that size they start to get unwieldy. It’s... weird, I suppose.”

“In a world of vampires, shapeshifters, and – presumably, from what you’ve said to distinguish yourself from them – werewolves, that hardly seems to be the weird part.”

“Okay,” I corrected myself. “It’s weirdly _normal_. The... standard vampires I’ve seen, they’re feral, they don’t care about blending in among humans, they can hardly even stand their own kind. Those who don’t drink human blood seem to have these... bits of normality about them. I don’t know how to describe it.” I punctuated my words with a long drink from the two-litre soda that had accompanied the pizza, taking it as a chance to gather some words. “Like, the Cullens, they are still pretty fucked up, in their own special little ways.”

Says the woman sitting on a vampire’s floor eating pizza and drinking soda.

“But, at first glance at least... they can pass for human. Like humanity has rubbed off on them, or something.”

“I suppose that’s a fair way to put it,” said Janan. “It’s, well, I suppose it’s like those feral children again. If you spend enough time around humans, then you start to think like one again. If you spend your time _eating_ humans, you’re going to end up something else entirely.”

“You are talking way too much sense,” I muttered, and wondered whether I should pinch myself just to be sure.

 

 

 

 

 

It had been a while since I’d slept in a bed. With the windows as wide open as I could get them and the door closed, most of the smell of vampire drifted out, and I had long since learnt to sleep where I could get it. I woke up rested from the sleep and the food, but sore as hell from the fight the day before and still wearing yesterday’s clothes. I sniffed myself, then regretted it.

The full events of the previous day returned to me, and I let out a groan as I rubbed one hand over my face. The last fragments of sleep shrugged off me, and I heard the sound of movement downstairs – running water and closing cupboard doors, rather than footsteps or breathing, of course – and, still, the faint thumping and choking sounds of the man who was slowly turning into a vampire.

I stuck my head into the bathroom to see the man in the tub, still tied up but with a couple of blankets tucked around him to cushion his writhing. His eyes skimmed over me at one point, but they seemed to be glazed over with pain, and I backed away quickly, closing the door behind me. Returning to the bedroom, I poked around and opened doors, finding the closet and a cupboard before finally locating an en suite. It smelt mostly of cleaning products, and that I could definitely handle.

With clean hands and face, I ventured downstairs to find another pitcher of water and a plate of sandwiches and fruit on the coffee table. As I closed the door behind me, Janan reappeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing fresh clothes and with slightly darker eyes than she had carried the day before. “Good morning, Leah,” she said respectfully.

“Morning,” I replied. Although I’d been a morning person before, hunting vampires tended to make you rather more nocturnal. “Is this...” I waved at the food. “It’s for me, right?”

She laughed, a bright sound, and for the first time since meeting her I wasn’t annoyed by it. This, at least, was a fair enough time to laugh. “Well, I have no other use for it. Ah, before it escapes me...” Like the flick of a switch, the laughter was gone, and she looked at me more seriously. “I dealt with the nomad. The wind picked up a little last night, so it carried the smell away.”

I took a large bite into one of the sandwiches, but her words made it taste bitter in my mouth, hard to swallow. “Thank you, again,” I said. It was the first one that I hadn’t needed to burn myself. “That can’t have been fun.”

“Would it be for anyone?” She raised one eyebrow at me. I didn’t reply that after a fight, it could feel _justified_ – though never really fun – and just nodded. “Also,” she said briskly, in a clear attempt to change the subject, “how long does the turning take? Mine seemed to be an eternity.”

“Three days, give or take.” _That_ much I certainly remembered. Sharing Jake’s head for three days whilst he had been torn between grieving for Bella and being devoted to Nessie had been like trying to stand in a whirlwind. “Depending on their body size, the amount of venom used, and as far as I know the alignment of the stars.”

That one, however, did not break her seriousness. “We’ll say seventy-two hours, then. He was already some way into turning when you found him, so he is perhaps thirty hours through. That is a promising thought.”

“We?” I caught the word with a frown, even as I caught the apple I had thrown into the air to catch again. “You want me to stick around until he’s done?”

It sounded as if he was a roast turkey. Not going to use that phrase again.

“I...” there was a note of delicacy in her voice now, and I saw the hands folded in front of her move slightly against each other. A huge sign of nervousness for a lee- vampire. “Well, I was intending to ask whether you wanted to. Whilst I appreciate that you cannot like being around vampires, and know that he may struggle to be around you...”

She trailed off. Not having a clue where this was going, I stared at her flatly.

“You said yourself that newborn vampires are particularly strong,” she finally said, like she was admitting to something. “I am not, and eating animals apparently makes me weaker than others. Were things to go wrong, I am not sure that I would be able to restrain him. For the protection of humans – we are in a city, after all – I think it might be safer if you were at least nearby when he wakes up.”

 _Wakes up_. What a mild way to put it. How about ‘finishes dying and comes back as a moving stone freakshow looking to chow down on a few humans’? ‘Possibly forgets that he used to be human and fancies snacking on a few’? Or, my personal favourite, ‘changes species entirely and goes on a literally bloodthirsty rampage’?

I realised that, despite being in Janan’s presence, I wasn’t being reminded every second by the wolf in my head that she was a vampire and I was supposed to kill her. Maybe only every three or four seconds instead. Had it finally found a leech that it didn’t consider too much of a threat?

“Fair point,” I said aloud. “But I can’t just sit around here for the next few days. I’d rather scout out some of the local rural areas, check there are no vampires just outside your reach. I’ll be back in thirty-six hours or so.”

“I understand,” said Janan, and I wondered just how much she understood. “Feel free to take the spare food with you.” The faintest smile crossed her lips, then she was across the room in a flash and vanishing upstairs again. Probably gone back to check on her temporary housemate. I wasn’t sure whether or not she was expecting a goodbye, but it didn’t really feel like the wisest move. Scooping up the food in one arm, I let myself out of the house and the garage, and only rolled the windows up a good ten miles later when the smell had mostly been driven out.

 

 

 

 

 

I sent one text on my way out of the city.

_Tell the boys that I’m ready for a talk. L._

The phone almost fell off the dash as it vibrated with the reply. I glanced down at it, grinned, and headed for the nearest area of woodland that I had seen on the map.

_Heading out now. Give us twenty. S. x_

Seth would kill me if I told anyone that he still put kisses on the end of his texts to me. I locked up my truck, headed into the trees, and slipped off my clothes before hiding them under a convenient fallen log. They might be a bit dirty when I got back, but hopefully I would not wind up streaking again.

Fall weather at least made sure that the woods were clear. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and phased.

Opening them again made the world look as if it was in a higher definition than before. There was a strange fish-eye effect, the focus of the world shifting, but I loved it. My body filled out the shape of the wolf, like it had been given the room that it needed after itching beneath my human skin for too long, and for a while I just ran, long easy strides that stretched out my legs. The smells of close-to-human nature filled my nose: earth, trees, rotting leaves, the faintest tinge of people.

It had been an impossible relief the first time that I had been alone in my head in wolf form, the first time that I had mental privacy. For over a year, I had shared my thoughts with any of the boys who happened to be in wolf form at the time – and had shared their thoughts as well. My friends, my kid brother, my once-fiancé. I fought with their dreams, their problems, and given that I had enough shit in my own life I didn’t fancy having to handle anyone else’s.

Nowadays, it felt a little lonely. Wolves were, after all, pack creatures. And humans, which I insisted on being recognised as, were social as well.

I was, technically, an Alpha. Alpha of my pack of one. Flopping down into a soft pile of leaves, I opened up my mind to the other Alphas, back in Washington. Jake was there already, in wolf form and opened up to the Alpha wavelength or whatever it was that we could all communicate on.

 _Nice to hear from you, Leah._ I could hear amusement in his voice. Jake at twenty-four was in some ways not very different from Jake at seventeen, although even I had to admit that Nessie made him happy. She was fully-grown now, and talking to her on the phone she really had sounded like an adult. I had some questions, but mostly I held my tongue.

 _And you, Jake_ , I replied. _How are things back in Forks?_

_Same old. No new pups since the last time you checked in._

_I’m not sure that the teens appreciate being called pups_.

I could hear his laughter running through my mind. As we had found our roles in life, we had fought far less than we used to.

_Edward and Bella are looking to move on soon. Especially now that Nessie is like the rest of them._

_Are you going with them?_ The question shot from my thoughts before I could even think twice about it, and Jake went so quiet that I thought at first he had phased back to being human again.

 _I’m thinking_ , he finally replied.

I was torn between trying to act reassuring and speaking my thoughts when the field in which we moved expanded. Sam’s commanding mental presence forced itself hard into my thoughts even before he spoke, and my ears flattened, lips lifting slightly. As the original Alpha, he still thought sometimes that he had a hold over us, even though I was quite determined to show him that was not the case.

Luckily, the other presence, only seconds behind Sam, was a far more welcome one. _Leah! Welcome back!_

Only my brother could think of our mental conversations as being a return, but I let the impression of a smile stretch to the others. _Thanks, kiddo_.

Seth made a rude noise, and Jake laughed, breaking the tension a little. Twenty-two or not, he was still a kid to me, and I felt a rush of fondness as I heard his mental voice again. He had offered to follow me when I first left Forks, but had understood in a way that I hadn’t expected from a sixteen year old when I explained that I needed my head to myself. Staying with our mom, he thrived within the pack and surprised everyone when he split off as Alpha of the new pack – until they remembered that I had been bold enough to go Alpha, and realised that Seth had his own gentle leadership that still got into people.

 _What’s the occasion, Leah?_ Sam’s voice cut across us all, deeper and firmer – harder, you might say. I felt another ripple of defiance, but pressed it down before the others could feel it.

 _What,_ said Seth, _she can’t just want to check in?_

His words were slightly playful, but there was a current beneath them. Sam had barely forgiven me for defecting with Jake all those years ago, let alone going off alone a year later. And I would have thought that he would have been as glad to be out of my head as I was to be out of his.

 _Don’t worry, Seth_ , I said. _Sam, you’re right, even if your head is clearly up your ass again_.

I could feel the growl building in Sam’s chest as if it was working in my own, and clamped my lips tightly together to prevent it slipping out.

 _I thought it would be worth your while to know about something that I’ve found_. I tried to put the words together in the best way. _I’ve found another vampire who doesn’t drink human blood. Says that she never has, and I’m inclined to believe her. She actually seems shocked at the idea of killing humans._

Sam scoffed. Even Jake didn’t sound too impressed; despite the fact that he was the closest of us to the Cullens, he seemed to see them as a real anomaly. He also seemed to remember their previous crimes less than the rest of us. Their previous _kills_.

 _Where?_ Said Seth. He sounded genuinely interested.

_Across the country. I don’t want to say much more, it isn’t my place to. I killed a nomad in her city, but there was a human already bitten and starting to turn._

_What did you do?_ Sam’s voice was dark, cautious. I had no doubt that he would have killed them there and then, and felt a flare of pleasure that I had not.

_The vampire I mentioned before, the one that does not harm humans. She has agreed to take him in. I’m staying for when he wakes up, in case there’s any trouble._

There was a wave of negative emotion from all three of the others. They had slightly different tinges: Seth concerned for me, Jake disbelieving, Sam unhappy with either of the vampires still being alive.

 _I’ve taken newborns apart as well,_ I snapped, letting them have a flash of my memories from our first clash with the newborn army, when we had still been one pack. I felt Jake recoil, then anger stir in him, but didn’t feel particularly bad about it. He had been a fucking idiot, after all. _I can handle this._

 _You think that letting any vampire live is a good idea?_ Sam’s voice was still calm and controlled, but I could hear the anger building behind it like pressure behind a dam. There was a touch of restlessness there as well, as if he wanted to pace back and forth. _Short of acting like a guard dog, you can’t police him forever._

 _Perhaps I can make my own treaties_ , I said, throwing my weight behind my voice. I felt all three of them draw back just slightly, though they all tried to hide it. _They’re no danger to the Rez, no danger to you guys. And as long as they don’t kill humans, they’re no worry of mine._

 _And if they do?_ Sam, still pressing, still uncertain.

I held myself strong in the space that we stared. I was as much as Alpha as he was, his equal. _Then I’ll deal with them then. I’m the one who’s been hunting vampires. How many have any of you fought since the Seattle mess?_

There was a moment of wordless anger from the others, but none of them could argue with me. There had been no real incidents since the newborn army, a good seven years ago now, for the packs in Forks to deal with. It only made me more suspicious that new kids were phasing when there had been new vampires in the area. Only the Cullens could be to blame.

 _I’ve got this under control, boys_. As if I was in the playground, five years old, and had caught them eating worms. _Remember, I didn’t need to tell you. I chose to_.

I phased back before they could say anything else, and went to retrieve my clothes.

 

 

 

 

 

For the rest of that day and most of the next, I simply revelled in having a bit of freedom. I was neither tracking a vampire nor tidying up after killing one, and it felt good to have a couple of days to myself. I walked around the woods, caught a few rabbits and cooked them over an opened fire, stretched my paws from time to time, and slept in the back of my truck. Good luck to anyone who tried to attack me, that was all that I could say.

As the afternoon wore on and I figured it was time to be heading back to Janan and her charge, I was already regretting it. I suppose that I could have taken off then, left it be, but I had too much pride. I had, after all, promised her that I was coming back.

Sometimes I’m a fucking idiot.

I clung three miles an hour below the speed limit as I drove back, my fingers drumming on the steering wheel and my throat tight. With my nerves jangling, I could smell the vampire in the air almost from the instant I hit the town limits, and it grew stronger as I grew closer to Janan’s house. My skin itched.

I pulled up on the drive, but hesitated before knocking on the door. I could hear the heartbeat of the man inside, so fast now that it was almost a blur, but there was no screaming or thrashing around anymore. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or not. I was still thinking about it when the door opened and Janan appeared before me, fully shrouded from the sun again. She stood aside to let me in, and if I looked closely at her she seemed to be holding herself differently. Nervously.

“Thank you for coming back,” she said quietly. I grunted in reply, tapping my foot as she closed the door and removed her veil once again. She looked troubled; I was oddly relieved that some vampires could still show facial expressions.

“How close?”

A shrug rippled through her. “He has stopped breathing, and I think that the heat is receding. An hour, maybe less.” Both of us looked up towards the ceiling and the racing heartbeat on the other side. It made me feel uncomfortable to have mine still steady in my chest. “In the meantime, I have more food for you in the kitchen. I noticed that you were very hungry last time you were here.”

“Comes with the shapeshifting,” I said by means of explanation. She nodded, the corners of her lips twitching slightly and her eyes warming. “You should see the shit my brother can put away.”

I didn’t know whether it was still possible to keep Seth occupied by giving him two loaves of bread and a gallon of ice cream, but I suspected that it would still have a chance. It turned out that Janan had what looked like four portions of Indian food, which translated in wolf to a light lunch. It was keeping warm in the oven, and I moved it to the breakfast bar before starting to dish up and dig in.

“You must have gotten through a lot of food over the years,” said Janan wryly.

The truth of it made me chuckle. “Trust me, this is nothing. A couple of the guys went to this all-you-can-eat buffet in Port Angeles and got kicked out after less than an hour.”

“You know the others, then?”

Fuck. I hadn’t meant to let that much slip. I couldn’t undo what I’d said, however, and just nodded through a mouthful of vindaloo. “Yeah, there are others. I’m the only one round here, though. Janan, I gotta ask...”

It felt strange to use her name. I hadn’t realised that it would.

“Do you actually experience loneliness, as a vampire? Most really don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves and their mate. The other animal-eaters,” I _refused_ to use that stupid word ‘vegetarian’ to describe it, “are groups. Covens. You live alone.”

“I have a job,” she replied. “Bookkeeping work for a company in the city, who allow me to wear the veil. I have friends, acquaintances. If anything, I find people tiring still – imagine every noise and sight and smell amplified a dozen times over. I like having the nights to myself. Do you socialise much?”

I got the feeling that she was teasing me just a little, or at least pointing out that I wasn’t really one to talk. Apart from texts to the other Packs, and the occasional time in wolf form to communicate with the Alphas, I didn’t really talk to people any more. It was easier that way, easier to not have to lie.

“Not too easy when you’re a vampire-hunting shapeshifter,” I replied. “Besides needing to be almost as nomadic as they are.”

There might have been more to say – more to argue – but Janan’s head snapped upwards and I glanced as well. It took a moment for me to realise what she heard – or didn’t. The human’s heartbeat had stopped, meaning that he wasn’t a human anymore. He was a newborn.

“Go,” I said to Janan, who was already rising to her feet. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stood, kicking off my sneakers and walking through to the front room. I wasn’t sure that there would be enough room for me to phase upstairs, and I was hoping not to unless it was a complete necessity.

I could hear talking, too fast for me to follow and too high-pitched to sound human. There was panic about it, then anger, and then a snarl ripped through the air, followed by a choked-off scream.

“Shit.” I almost phased, felt my body start to blur around my mind, and let out a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a groan as I forced my body to hold together and ran for the stairs. Scuffling came from above me, banging, the sound of wood being torn apart; I took the steps two at a time and burst into the master bedroom where the sound was erupting from.

The door had been torn off its hinges, and lay on the ground. Even to me, the fight was little more than a blur; the newborn was throwing Janan about the room, tearing things apart as he bolted after her, then occasionally attempting to lunge away only for her to leap after him and try to restrain him.

“Leah!” she shouted at the sight of me.

That was enough.

My wolf was smaller than the others, though still far larger than natural. Perhaps chest-height on a human. I closed in around my brain as my body exploded outwards, bones cracking, hair rushing out to cover my skin, watching my vision sharpen and feeling my nose and lungs fill with the stench of fresh, bloody vampire newborn. I flashed to wolf form, dropped to a crouch, and let out a full-throated snarl that seemed to fill the room.

At the sound, the newborn spun, horror twisting his features. First his own body turned against him, then and now a monster coming for his blood. The wolf in me screamed, surrounded by shards of furniture and shreds of fabric, seeing Janan falling on the floor with cracks in her skin and her clothes all but torn away.

There wasn’t enough room to really fight, which was not to my advantage, but then again it meant that he could not use his speed either. He lunged at me, and I swept sideways, swatting his legs hard with my paw to fling them from under him. Another piece of furniture turned to firewood as he careened into it, and with another snarl I leapt, aiming for his back.

He rolled away, and I tried to skid round to follow him, then I felt teeth sink into my shoulder as he lunged for me with the only weapon that his body instinctively knew. A sear of icy-burning pain went through me, but I let myself fall onto that side instead, trapping him beneath my weight. With a roar of anger he started to struggle, kicking and fighting, biting me a second, third, fourth time as my leg started to go numb and my shoulder to quake from the pain. Finally he managed to wriggle both arms beneath me and throw me aside; I crashed against the wall, plaster cracking but brickwork holding, and righted myself just as he lunged at me again.

I felt one arm wrap over my back and knew what he was trying to do. What had been done to Jake before, hands around him to crush him to the vampire’s chest and break his bones against their stone body. I dropped to the floor, leaving him with a handful of my fur for his troubles, and sank my teeth into his leg.

The strength of my jaw sheared through the rock, sending fragments falling away, and the rotting taste still had a bloodiness to it that made me want to gag. The vampire screamed as he fell, clawing for the piece of himself that I quickly flung from his reach, and then I sat on his chest and arms, putting one paw across his throat to hold him still and letting my nails scrape his skin.

His eyes were crimson red, wide, the pupils dilated. Fear, anger, both together? I remembered my terror when I first phased; I may have known what was happening, but did not understand how it could happen to me. Panting, I looked to Janan, now standing by the wall and shaking, and cocked my head in as human a gesture as possible to motion her to come closer.

She did, tentatively. There was a crack running up one side of her face, and she was holding her arm to her side as a human would when it was broken. The clothes that she was wearing had been ripped at the shoulder and across her chest, slashed in front of her legs, but the blinds in the room were closed and only the finest shafts of light crept through to reach her skin.

The newborn still struggled and growled beneath me, and I turned back to him, snarling fully in his face so that he could see my teeth and get the full force of my anger. My body was starting to burn, vampire venom killing my cells and withering them away at the same time as my body healed the damage. A hidden race between two truly supernatural forces.

“Listen,” said Janan suddenly. She knelt down beside the newborn, putting her hand on his shoulder where it appeared from beneath me. He tried to pull away, “Listen to me. We don’t want to kill you. Stop fighting.”

He was making a high-pitched keening sound, right on the edge of my vision, and his eyes locked onto her. There was something in there that I was tempted to call desperation. Then he bucked, and tried to throw me off again.

“I know it’s frightening.” Janan talked fast, voice low, soothing. “I know that it’s overwhelming. I know that you don’t remember anything, don’t understand what’s happening. We can tell you. I can tell you. Feel this.”

She rose to her feet, crossed the room to pick up his leg, and bought it back all faster than the blink of an eye. It made him fight harder against me, and I let out a warning growl, but Janan spat onto the exposed ‘flesh’ – for want of a better word – before kneeling to reattach it. This time, the newborn definitely moaned.

In an instant, Janan was back beside him, looking into his eyes. I wondered whether vampires could recognise their own kind. “Look at me, listen to me. Can you speak? Do you remember words? Your mouth.” She tapped her lips, then her throat. “Remember.”

“I...” It was a growl, and I wasn’t sure at first whether it was meant to be a real word. “I remember. Words. Talk.”

“Yes,” said Janan, like praising a child. “Talking. _Speaking_. This body feels strange, but don’t worry. It is yours. It will feel right. You are thirsty. I can help you.” She looked up to me, looked me right in the eye. I wasn’t used to that. “Leah, change back to your human shape. He’s frightened.”

I growled again, hoping to make her realise that he had already tried to rip her apart and given me a beating. In my head, the wolf railed against the smell of blood and vampire together and _knew_ he was a risk, _he is a killer, he will kill, danger, cold one_ -

My nails scratched his shoulders, and I had my own realisation. If I stayed in this shape much longer, the wolf would win out, tear him apart and keep him in pieces long enough that they would not heal. With a rumbling sound deep in my throat, I shifted back.

The mind stays still, the body moves. I’d gotten good at it over the years, and was still in perfect control as my paw on his throat became a hand around it, as my haunches became legs, as my weight stayed in the centre of the newborn’s chest. I could even hold back the shaking from the pain shooting up my arms. He was lying still now, not even breathing or blinking, just looking at me with fear in his eyes. Part of me liked it, and I was only _mostly_ disgusted with that part.

“There,” said Janan softly. “You see? As long as you do not fight. We will not harm you. Leah, let him sit up.”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” I said between gritted teeth. “He’s already fought.”

“And now he isn’t. Stay with him. I have a store of blood, in case of emergencies.” Her eyes had strayed back to him again. “It will help.”

He raised one hand to her, and I almost went to snap it off, before seeing the fear in the movement. Slowly, I took my weight off his chest and peeled my hand from his neck, still crouching over him. This time, he stayed still. I stepped to one side, grabbed him by the shoulder, and hauled him to sit against the wall. He gave a huff, forcing out whatever air was in his lungs, and pushed himself back as tight as he could against the plaster. It had cracked where something had been thrown against it earlier. Maybe furniture. Maybe me.

“Stay here. Just a moment longer. I can bring you something to help.”

I hunkered down next to the vampire, coming eye-to-eye with him. There was still a fast twitchiness to his movements, but for the most part he stayed in place, as he had been told to. It took only a handful of seconds – a few breaths – for Janan to vanish from the room, do whatever she was doing downstairs, and then reappear with a white plastic container, looking weirdly like an ice cream tub, in her hands.

She knelt down beside the newborn as well, on his other side, and he leant towards her slightly. Her fingers went to pop off the lid of the container, but he snatched it from his hands, biting a hole in the lid, and gulping down the liquid within. The sight and smell of blood hit me, and I put a hand to the wall to steady myself. I looked to Janan for an answer. She had her hand on the newborn’s shoulder, watching him with concern, not looking even slightly shocked as blood trickled from the corners of his lips and his hands crumpled the plastic container.

Finally he stopped, drawing it away from his face as if he still could not figure out what was going on. His fingers started to shake, and he dropped the bent white plastic into his lap, reaching up to touch the blood still on his chin. He looked at the blood on his fingertips as if he could not work out how it had got there.

“What is your name?” said Janan.

His gaze snapped up to her again.

“Your name. Do you remember? Who are you?”

His brow furrowed slightly, eyes narrowing as he thought through the words. Janan let him, and I had nothing to say. His lips moved, but for a moment no sound came out, then finally he paused and spoke, deliberately.

“Patrick. My name... is Patrick.”

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t ask how much blood Janan had in her refrigerator, not even while Patrick drank his way through three more containers and was on the verge of licking his hands clean when Janan guided him to the bathroom to clean himself up. His last human sweat and spit and tears still clung to him, and she coaxed him into showering whilst I found some clothes and made myself presentable again.

The guestroom was destroyed. Janan still had some fine cracks showing in her skin, but she assured me that they would fade as soon as she next fed. There were some scratches from where his newly-stone hands had met with my shoulders and ribs, but they only stung a little and would fade soon enough. I’d come out of fights looking far worse. The reddish-purple marks around the bites felt cold and sharp, as if someone was scraping knives over my skin, but aside from the sweat and the slight shaking of my hands I was okay. As long as I kept focused, I could do this.

A borrowed bathrobe attempting to give me back some dignity, I slunk back downstairs, toying with cold rice and congealing curry, and waited for one or both of the vampires to reappear. It took long enough for me to get edgy and consider going to check on them, but I couldn’t hear any fighting and stayed out of the way. Finally, they reappeared, with Patrick still in his one-legged trousers and ripped shirt, but with some of the smell of blood washed away from him. I took another mouthful of curry, hoping it would scorch the scent out.

“Leah,” said Patrick, making me look up. His voice was a little quicker than usual, words a little clunky, but I supposed at least it was a start. “Janan explained to me what happened. I want to thank you.”

This is why I hate dealing with survivors. “It’s what I do,” I replied, and inwardly rolled my eyes. I wasn’t sure that I could sound any more like some Batman wannabe if I tried. “I mean... it’s in my blood, you could say. It’s nothing for me to be proud of.”

“It might not be much to you, Leah, but it is to us,” said Janan. My eyes skipped from her to Patrick and back again, wondering whether I had accidentally stumbled over some sort of mate bond moment, but she must have caught the glance because she cleared her throat and added. “I mean, to those of us who don’t want to hurt people. To have someone else who believes that we can, someone who can help.”

“Better than killing you,” I said flatly, then regretted it as pain flashed across her face. Almost too fast for even me to see, but there. I pressed my lips together and turned away, putting down the fork in my hand and sliding back out of the chair and up to my feet. It was true, and I didn’t much want to take it back and suggest otherwise, but it had crossed some line. “Look, I... I should be going. Are you sure that you can handle this?”

I made sure to look at each of them in turn when I said that.

Patrick nodded cautiously, but Janan put her hand on his shoulder and gave a more certain smile. “We’ll figure something out. I’ve been through this before, after all.”

It probably would have been a good moment to leave, but I hung on for just a moment more. “I’ve got a cell,” I added. “I can give you the number. If anything comes up. Another vampire coming through or anything, one who does kill humans.”

“I would appreciate that,” said Janan. Patrick gave a minute flinch, and she looked round again, then gave me an apologetic look and led him from the room.

I folded my arms across my chest, waiting as she flashed back in and out again to retrieve another container of blood from the fridge and a straw from one of the drawers. Well, I suppose it was better than lapping it up like a cat.

“Sorry,” she said on her second return to the kitchen. “Things might be hard for a few days, but... he wants to be, well, good. He is shocked at the thought of killing humans. As soon as the sun sets, I will take him out of town, somewhere isolated. Let him test the limits of his body, find out about himself. See if he can remember.”

“You aren’t wearing your veil.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them, but Janan’s smile just became warmer at the words.

“Well, we were there at his birth. I can’t think of a reason not to call him family now.

 

 

 

 

 

Within three hours, I was back on the freeway. The sun was out, I had found a radio station, and I should have been feeling at least relieved at what I had managed over the last few days, even if it was too strange a situation for me to really feel good. Aside from the dull pain still radiating down my arm, as if I’d been lifting weights, I had walked away unscathed from dealing with, all told, three vampires.

It should have been a good feeling. But I couldn’t bring myself to smile as I turned my wheels back towards Interstate 35.

I had been driving for less than twenty minutes when my cell rang. “ _Fuck_ ,” I hissed, grabbing it from the seat next to me and almost fumbling it before I managed to hit the answer button and put it to my ear. At a glance, I didn’t recognise the number.

“Hello?”

 _Leah?”_ Janan’s voice sent a shock of cold down my spine. I sat bolt upright in my seat, hand gripping the steering wheel tighter. _“Leah, I need you back here.”_

“Is it Patrick?” I could see a turn-off for another small village coming up ahead, and hit my turn signal. “I’m twenty minutes out, but I can hit the gas. I thought you were taking him out of town?”

 _“No, no, Patrick, he’s-”_ There was a choking sound, as if she was trying to sob but could not manage it. There was no reason for her breath to become unsteady, even when she was running; how much human behaviour had she picked up? _“These other vampires turned up. Two of them. Red eyes. They took him to pieces, burnt him, and they’re after me.”_

Fuck shit hell damn it all. I had to switch hands before I ripped the steering wheel off the dash, even as I turned off and started to loop round to the other side of the highway. “Put on your burkha and get out into the sun,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “Stay in crowds. You know my smell, right? I’ll drive right to the town centre, come and find me and we can both get out somewhere isolated. I’ve taken down two vampires before.”

_“I’m already out, already among people. I can’t move fast, though...”_

“Just _stay in crowds_. Number one vampire rule is not to give things away. I’m coming, Janan. I’m coming now.”

She put down the phone just as I hit the freeway again, putting my foot down this time. My truck didn’t go that fast, but I didn’t have too much ground to make up, and I could still see Fairfield on the horizon. Cursing every blood-sucking sparkly stone piece of shit that I had ever run into, I hauled ass back towards the town and hoped that the sun stayed out long enough to give Janan cover.

Two, she’d said. I could handle two. The one time that I had run into a group of three, they had injured my pretty badly, but even then I had been able to bag them up, stumble back to my car and find somewhere to shiver and sweat out the two days of pain that followed. Only the bites had been too much of a problem; even the broken arm had healed up before the first night was out.

“Just hold on, Janan,” I muttered, slowing down as I hit the outskirts. Didn’t want to get pulled over by a cop now. My heart was pounding in my chest, but that was mostly just the wolf trying to claw its way back out, as I headed back towards the centre of town.

The scent of vampire was everywhere, of course. Now, though, I could feel that there were even more layers to it, more leeches in the area. They made my skin itch, my toes curl until I had to slip my feet out of my shoes.

Vengeance for the nomad that I had dealt with a few days ago, perhaps? If he had been heading towards someone and failed to show, they could have come looking and presumed that Janan and Patrick were to blame. If they could take apart a newborn, though, they probably knew what they were doing. Experienced, perhaps, and somehow they had still missed Janan.

I parked up, grabbed my shoulderbag, and got moving. Fast, but only human-fast, as if I was missing a meeting or just cold from forgetting my jacket. As long as no-one got close enough to feel the heat pouring off my skin or notice the way that the muscles were tightening and thickening on my back, there was no problem. Hell, even if they did, I was just some weirdo; it wasn’t as if shapeshifters _existed_ to humans, after all.

There weren’t many people out, but there were enough that it meant no vampire should be stupid enough to attack me. Once, then again, I caught sight of someone wearing black, but as soon as I got close enough for a clear view I realised that it wasn’t her. Finally, I grabbed my phone and hit redial.

_“It has not been possible to connect your call.”_

There was no way that could be a good thing. I was still looking angrily at my phone when I felt a shadow fall across my arm, and looked up to realise that the clouds were rolling in.

 

 

 

 

 

It started to rain not long after. Almost as soon as the first drops hit my skin, I started running, hitting one of the trails of scent from the new vampires and following it. It was leading away from Janan’s house, and I hoped it was the right one.

The trail turned east, and I sped up with it, realising that Janan must have gone out of the town. Why, I had no idea. But if humans were allowed to be contrary idiots, I guessed supernatural creatures were as well, and once the trail entered the Chautauqua Park I snarled in anger and had to fight not to drop to all fours and wolf out.

The screeching sound of vampire flesh being ripped caught my attention, and I burst through the trees towards it. Feet and heart in time, trees flashing past, closing in on the sound and-

I skidded to a halt in the small clearing, my feet tearing lines in the earth. There were three vampires in front of me: Janan on the ground, one of her arms torn off; two standing over her, wearing grey cloaks and with teeth bared. Both were male, one taller even than me and built like a linebacker, the other slighter but still tall and carrying himself confidently.

“The shifter,” said the second of them, and that was when I recognised them. Volturi. “You deal with her.”

His taller companion’s snarl turned to a nasty grin, and he spun to face me. I dredged up the name Felix to connect to the larger hunk of stone, and Demetri to his waiting friend still holding over Janan.

“Never figured that I’d see you again,” said Felix. “After that little showdown with the Cullens a while back. What, your kind over your dislike of vampires now?”

His eyes were very dark, almost black, and I could see scrapes running down his cheek where Janan must have got in at least one good blow. “Bite me,” I replied.

He laughed, a sound I didn’t much like, and gave me an exaggerated wink. “Is that an offer?”

I exploded out into wolf form, the air punching out from my body as I sprang. Even for him and me, it was fast, but before my claws could connect with him I felt a heavy blow that knocked me aside. It was just a swat; I rolled in the air and landed in a scrabble of claws, whirling back to face him even as he dropped to a fighting crouch. His legs moved as he lowered his centre of gravity, right one shifting forwards, and I barrelled towards him in a full heavy run as if I was just going to ram into him.

It was an amateur move, not the sort of thing that I would have pulled even years ago. But I had learnt that vampires tended to think that everyone else in the world was an absolute imbecile, and he braced himself to catch me, readying his hands to wrap around and crush my ribs. At the last moment I threw my weight sideways, back end skidding out, my right foreleg reaching to catch him at knee-height.

Vampires might have been made of rock, but my kind were solid enough to make them feel the blows all the same. With a grunt, Felix almost fell forwards, springing off his hands to flip off the ground even as I skidded the rest of the way around towards him again.

“Not bad, puppy dog,” he said, still with that cocky grin. Fucking vampires and their fucking condescending bullshit. I’d had enough of being talked down to when I left the pack. “Got any more than that?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Demetri, just watching with folded arms and a generally bored expression. Felix was still in his readied position, watching me like a cat watches a toy, but with none of the rippling readiness to attack beneath his skin.

The Volturi had not, so far as I knew, actually seen the La Push pack in a fight. Even if they had, that would tell them nothing about how I was going to fight, seven years later and on my own. He was waiting for me to give something away.

Instead, I started circling around, away from Demetri and around the clearing. My paws tested out the gentle give of the ground, how much spring there was to it, whilst my ears listened for the slightest stone-metal creak that would tell me that Felix was moving, and my eyes remained locked on him. His eyes flickered from my eyes to my teeth to my paws and back to my teeth again, and I could guess his question: were my claws strong enough to rip open vampire flesh?

Let him come close enough, and he’d get to find out.

“You know,” Felix continued, as I kept circling and he kept matching me, so far around now that I was actually starting to come closer to Demetri again, “if this goes on for too long, the sun’s going to come out, and this is just going to get _really_ messy.”

I gave him an eloquent snarl in response. It just made his smirk seem a little bit wider.

“Drag humans into it. You want to do that, puppy dog? I do recall seeing you back in Forks, come to think of it, with that colour fur. Smaller than the others, weren’t you? And more ready for a fight than them.”

His stance was relaxing a little, as he seemed to settle on the idea that I wasn’t actually going to start anything, maybe even that I might be afraid of actually fighting him when I hadn’t immediately taken him out. In response, I leapt, one furious burst of teeth and claws.

Leapt at Demetri.

I may have been smaller than the others, but I had always been faster. Fast enough, for example, that Demetri barely had time to change his expression from droll boredom to horror, barely had time to start shifting his weight to spring away or back towards me, did not have time to make anything like a clear decision, before I hit him.

One set of nails sunk into his chest with a crunching like poking holes through Styrofoam. The other front paw wrapped around his head, pulling on his temple to twist his head up and away, opening his neck. It was as much the force of the blow as the actual closing of my teeth that shattered through his neck, sending a chunk flying away even as venom from his throat rushed into my mouth and seared against my lips. As my weight dragged him backwards, he reached up to claw blindly at me, succeeding in dragging scratches down my neck, across my cheek, into my gums-

Fire exploded into my mouth. It felt as if I was heaving molten rock, as if every vampire bite I had ever received had been boiled down and forced into my mouth to sear into my gums and make it feel as if my teeth were about to explode. I released Demetri, unable to hold on against the pain. Unable to even _see_ against the pain, as every cell of my brain exploded into agony that flashed over and over again through my jaw and into my face, my throat, my head.

One of the vampires roared with fury, but I hardly noticed until movement filled my vision and teeth were sinking into my shoulder. I shook him off violently, but then another set of teeth was sinking into the other foreleg, twice, a third time, punching venom into my blood and filling my blood and body and head with shrieking, _howling_ pain.

I could feel myself, my thoughts, being crushed down under the weight of the pain and the howling wolf, and this should have been the moment that the rest of my pack realised that something was wrong and came to my rescue. But I had no pack, just me and the wolf inside, and I had to claw my way into control as the teeth ripped open my shoulder in a desperate slash.

I dropped myself down onto that side, hearing the vampire beneath grunt with surprise as my weight slammed into him. It released his hand, and in an instant I was slamming back into the second vampire; I collided with Felix in mid-air, all teeth and claws, tearing through his clothes and scraping gouges in his chest, my mouth clipping off his ear and scraping away part of his cheek.

Before he would have time to react, before I lost the hit of energy and strength from the adrenaline that was pounding through me, I whirled back to Demetri again. His neck was already damaged; one good blow or bite and he should be out of the fight. My only concern was that he might find the other parts of himself and put them back...

“You filthy bitch!” The words had a whistle to them, and I realised that Demetri was speaking, not even to me but to Janan. Her arm now reattached, she had picked up the largest piece of him that had been knocked away and was scrabbling to keep it out of his reach, even as he struggled with her, trying to grab her neck with both hands to rip off her head in turn. Janan fought to keep his left arm away from her, even as his right clawed at her neck, her expression one of fixed determination.

As I hit the ground, I shifted back to human form, barely stumbling as I straightened up onto two feet once more. The world was blurring around the edges and I could taste acid in my throat as my arms, pulsing with hot pain, threatened to not obey me, but I crossed the short distance between them in just a few paces.

Perhaps it was that Janan glanced at me. Perhaps it was my reflection in her eyes. But Demetri noticed something, and he was just starting to turn as I reached him, one of my arms going to wrap around his neck and stretch it back, the other readying for the blow at the base which would cleanly break it off. It gave him just enough warning to grab my forearm as it came in, sinking his teeth into it, and I cried out in anger and pain again as one more wave of deep red hit me.

It didn’t matter, though. My hands just wrapped around the sides of his head instead, took hold, and I twisted his head round until it sheared away with a groaning metal sound and his jaw locked, ripping a chunk of flesh out of my arm. His head dropped away, a dead weight of dead stone, and even as my vision started to jerk I drew back my teeth into a snarl and turned to face Felix.

He was on the far side of the clearing, holding one hand protectively over his cheek where, I thought, there was a chunk broken away. As I readied myself for another attack, his eyes locked on me.

“This isn’t over, shifter,” he spat.

Then I was fool enough to blink, and he was gone, replaced just by the treeline that buckled into wet lines and water droplets falling into my eyes. My legs gave out from beneath me, and cold hands wrapped around my upper arms to catch me and lower me down onto the rocking ground. I thought that I might be sick, even before I caught sight of my arms, bites on my biceps and torn flesh just above my wrist.

“Leah? Leah, can you hear me?”

Words. Those were words, not meaningless musical sounds. I turned to see a white mist that cleared into Janan’s features, her eyes dark hollows. I tried to speak, but it came out a whine, and then pinpricks of black started to seep across everything.

 

 

 

 

 

My name is Leah Clearwater. I’m a werewolf, and I kill vampires.

It’s a long story. Twisted. Downright fucked up. And this was where it nearly ended.

My vision spun in and out, my thoughts spiralling too much for me to get a tight hold on any of them. Most of them revolved around pain, anyway, searing pain that cut across each sentence I tried to form, plucked at my breath, filled my mouth with a taste of blood made filthy. I had snatches of awareness, too little to form a clear thread from: being held in cold, hard arms; rain against my face, and feeling like it should boil away; the smell of vampire wrapping claustrophobically around me; the rattle of my old Chevy’s engine.

Occasionally, I would get clearer fragments, long enough to make something out of. I sat in the passenger seat of my Chevy, with Janan beside me, coughing hard enough to almost throw me out of my seat and hard enough that she put one arm across my chest to hold me back. It was night, and the windows were open, but still it did not manage to feel cold.

Time didn’t manage to form a line. There was consciousness, which was red pain, or there was black fever and burning and snarling creatures tearing my flesh from my bones and nobody coming, no matter how much I screamed.

There was a lot more black than red.

 

 

 

 

 

After a while – and when I had a sense of _after_ – there was a blackness that did not assault me, and by that time I was grateful for it.

Thoughts and sensations seemed to rush into my mind in an instant, sounds and smells and touches of cotton and voices and people and rain and—

I drew in a sharp breath, eyes flying open as things arranged themselves into the right sort of shapes again, senses connecting themselves to the right ideas. Ceiling above me, bed beneath me, sheets, smell of powder and people and _stop_.

Keeping hold of my thoughts was like holding water in my hands. I gripped them tightly, even as a gentle hand brushed against my cheek and I realised that someone was sitting on the bed beside me.

“Leah? Oh thank god, we were so worried...”

Green flecks in warm brown eyes focused on me. Her lashes faded from a mid-brown out to almost translucent at the tips. I could smell her skin, warm and soft, beneath the scents of powder and toothpaste and shower gel that overlay them. And her hand was _so warm_ against my cheek, so gentle where it cupped my jaw; there was so much concern in her eyes for a woman that she barely knew.

“Sonia?” My voice cracked, throat dry.

Sonia smiled, and even though it hurt I almost smiled with her, almost used up some of the strength that it was taking just to keep me sitting up. My stomach cramped with pain, and my arms were already shaking. It was as if there was something radiating off her, something other than warmth or the sound of her beating heart. My muscles tried to tense, something demanding that I be well enough to protect her, protect _my imprint_ , but common sense and pain held me back from trying to do anything.

I had never expected to see her again. That had been the whole point, running away in the rain rather than taking the offer for a drink that she had offered me after – according to the story she had been given – I saved her father from being mugged. Not only had I gotten over Sam on my own, human terms, but the wolf in me had turned away as well. I told myself that I was doing the best thing by keeping her away from the dangerous knowledge about me and the life that I led, and by keeping up my assault on the vampires of the country.

But now Sonia was here, and real, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her hand fell away from my cheek again, and it took restraint not to grab it back to keep the contact with her. It was like a craving, a hunger, but I knew that it was a phantom in my mind and did not matter; I pushed it aside.

“Don’t worry,” she continued, “no-one knows that you’re here. Your friend explained—”

Just what the explanation had been, I was dying to hear, but at that moment the door opened again and Janan was in the doorway. She was wearing her headscarf and normal clothes, but had her face exposed, and smiled as she saw me sitting up.

“You’re awake,” she said, relief in her voice. I nodded dumbly, partly because I wasn’t sure what else to say when everyone was still stating the obvious.

She crossed to stand beside my bed as Sonia reached around me to fuss with the pillows, and gestured for me to sit against the headboard. Shuffling back those few inches was enough to make me grit my teeth and feel as if sweat was about to bead on my forehead, but I forced myself to do so.

“How did I get here?”

It was about the most all-encompassing question I could come up with. The last thing I remembered was being naked and covered in vampire bites, falling unconscious halfway across the country with pieces of a dead Volturi guard member at my feet.

“I thought it would be best if you were with friends while your fever passed,” said Janan. “You mentioned some in Port Angeles, but I wasn’t sure exactly where they were. I found Sonia’s number inside your car.”

The card in the side pocket. I should have been grateful that it was Janan who found it, and not some other vampire who found my car unattended and ransacked it.

“She explained that you were having a relapse and it might take a few days,” Sonia added. Her eyes flickered to Janan and back, just for a moment; I couldn’t read exactly what was in her expression, but there was something _wrong_ and I felt the leaping urge to try to fix it. “And that you always ran a high temperature anyway, so I wasn’t to freak out and take you to the hospital or anything.”

My mouth felt parched, like sandpaper with strings of glue threaded across it, and my throat and stomach ached. “How long did it last?”

“It’s been a little over two days since you got here,” said Sonia.

Even with as little energy as I could muster, I was getting angry. Pissed-off was somewhere on the horizon, but I didn’t have enough strength for that yet. I tried to shoot Janan a warning glare that wasn’t too apparent to Sonia, but it was impossible to tell whether she realised or not. As soon as I looked back to Sonia herself, however, the anger slipped away to sit quietly at the back of my mind until I called for it again, replaced by a warm glow and an urge to just look at her, be around her, stay with her.

“Thank you,” I said, in one of the softest tones I’d used in years, and the part of me that knew this was due to the imprint was thoroughly disgusted.

Sonia, though, smiled again, and it bought back that little dimple and a shine in her eyes which showed it was real. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” she replied. She patted my hand again, and I knew that I was imagining that it felt different from any other touch of human skin, but I couldn’t help appreciating it. Perhaps it was just that it had been so long since I had allowed myself to touch another human, even to shake hands or brush against them in the street. Maybe a raised body temperature wasn’t as noticeable as what marked out vampires – thank god, I didn’t sparkle – but it was still there. Still memorable. Still _strange_.

She gave Janan another of those little glances, then straightened up. Her hand slipped away from mine, and I wished that I wasn’t noticing things like that, or at least that they didn’t mean anything.

“I should probably let you two talk.”

She slipped from the room before I could protest, ducking her head to avoid looking Janan in the eye as they passed each other, and closed the door behind her. Janan’s smile became a little more regretful as she, in turn, walked round to the bed and sat beside me.

The anger that had been waiting surged forward again. “What the hell am I doing here?”

“You passed out in the park,” said Janan, apparently unshaken by my glare and the way that my shoulders were shaking, wanting to go wolf but not having the strength. “You were feverish, mumbling, almost fitting. I was able to get you back to my house, but I didn’t know what to do. Your phone was password-locked, you hadn’t told me about any of the others like you... Sonia’s address was in your car. I got some water down you, wrapped you in a blanket, and drove here at exactly the speed limit. At one point, you hit a hundred and fifteen degrees Fahrenheit.

“I knew that it was only a chance that Sonia would know, but I felt like I had to take it. I figured that if she knew, she’d recognise me for what I was, but she didn’t. So I gave a cover story: you have an autoimmune disease, with a made-up Latin name. It means that you always seem to run a fever, and sometimes you have flare-ups which make things worse. You had warned me of that, but they usually don’t come on this suddenly, so you didn’t manage to tell me what to do.”

“And she believed you?” I knew that there were stranger diseases out there, but it still seemed a stretch. “She didn’t suggest hospital?” A glance at my arms, now bite-mark-free and with only a tender, pink patch to show where a chunk had been torn out. “Or think I was turning into a zombie?”

“She did suggest hospital,” Janan replied. It was strange to watch her talk, with none of the little movements that make humans so natural. No blinks, no twitches of the lips, no shifting hands. With the Cullens I hadn’t noticed it so much, probably because I was too busy hating them, but Janan seemed otherwise so _normal_ that it actually stood out. “I said that no, rest and water and a good bed were all that you really needed. When she asked why here, I explained that we were old friends, that we had been taking a roadtrip because I had just split up with my ex after a huge argument, and that I couldn’t exactly take you back there. She was very understanding.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that she was a good person, but I bit it back, unsure if it was the imprint saying that or whether it had been my honest impression of her during the brief time that we had met, those years ago. Certainly she had been grateful and welcoming, but I couldn’t claim to know her well. Her father, perhaps a little better after our long talk, but not Sonia herself.

Overall, though, I had to admit that Janan had done me a huge favour. “Thank you,” I said, leaning my head back against the wall. My neck ached from the effort of holding it up. “You didn’t need to do this.”

“You saved my life,” said Janan. Now emotion showed on her face: she frowned, casting her eyes down, pain drawing her features. “I saw what they did to Patrick, and they were doing the same to me. _You_ didn’t need to do _that_.”

True on both counts, I supposed. I could have left the vampires to finish off Janan before I killed them, and then would have been able to call this the most successful week of my life. Or, at least, that part of my life which had been ruled by hunting vampires. Five leeches dead, a city saved. Maybe I wouldn’t even have ended up half-dead myself at the end of a fight, or at the very worst I could have called Carlisle Cullen from hospital and had him create a cover story to stop me from being found out as something _strange_. I didn’t have to save Janan, and two weeks ago I would have said that a vampire fight was a perfect opportunity to let them thin their own ranks before I killed them myself. But things had ended up different.

Likewise, there was not much that could kill a shapeshifter. None of our generation had stopped phasing yet, so we didn’t know how fast or how completely our strengths went away when we did. None of us had died, and I had taken some pretty heavy hits even before now. This was probably the worst, though, to judge by the time and the pain involved. I’d have to let the guys back home know about—

My eyes were lolling closed when it hit me. The blurred outlines of the last moments of consciousness managed to get through the message that had been tingling beneath my skin.

“Felix!” I blurted. I jerked upright, my muscles stinging in protest, and just about managed not to fall back again. “Shit, I didn’t get Felix.”

“The other vampire left,” said Janan, a little more quickly than a human could.

My breathing started to increase, my heart speeding up in my chest. The pain in my limbs started to dull slightly as adrenaline sent warmth through them instead. Hands clenching in the blankets, I turned and swung my legs off the side of the bed. “You don’t understand. They’re the Volturi, and now they know that I’m hunting vampires. I’ve killed one of them. They’re going to come after me... no, they’ll use this as an excuse to get the whole _Pack_.”

I felt sick, and it had nothing to do with my injuries. Jacob – who I had to listen to – and Seth – who I wanted to listen to – had been less than convinced when I set out to travel and track down stray vampires, but Sam had been furious. He had said that he was putting the whole Pack at risk, because it was practically an act of war. We were meant to protect our home, he said, not go after nomad vampires.

I’d replied that if he tried to stop me leaving by ripping open _my_ face, it would just heal again. He almost hit me just for those words.

That had been the moment when I had pulled myself out from the Pack and become my own Alpha. I didn’t know what werewolf lines were in my and Seth’s blood, but they had been powerful enough to let me strike out on my own. Jacob was the first one of them to realise that I was gone, and there had been a touch of respect mixed in with the shock on his face as I turned on my heel and left.

But, just perhaps, Sam had been right.

Stray vampires were one thing. ‘Covens’ of two, or even three, were not too likely to be missed. They could be blamed on accidents or infighting. But this time, the Volturi knew that it was me, and I had crossed a line.

“ _Fuck_ ,” was all I said aloud. I tried to stand up, but my legs did not have the strength, and I felt myself sweating from the exertion. I gripped the edge of the bed and stared at my feet as if they were deliberately disobeying me.

“I have heard of the Volturi,” said Janan. “They are the lawmakers, but I do not see how they could be so powerful, or so cruel. You have angered them, yes, but it is no reason for them to attack the others.”

I tried to laugh. It came out as a rattling sound, hollow and angry. Just about right for me, I supposed. “I told you that we weren’t werewolves. They did exist once, in Europe, but the Volturi wiped them out. And I doubt that they were exactly serial vampire-killers. Apparently they’ve been trying to find an excuse to wipe out the Cullens for years... and there were fears that they’d do the same to us. And now I’ve given them the excuse.”

“Leah...” There was no argument in her voice now, no reasons for reassurance. Just my name, as if that could undo what I had started.

“They’re not just judge, jury and executioner,” I said, cutting across her. “They make the laws. They decide them. And they’re more powerful than...” I shook my head, but it made the world spin and I bit the inside of my mouth to centre myself again. “Some of them have extra powers. Ones which I’m not sure I could overcome.”

This time, I was going to die. Strangely, the thought didn’t actually scare me – not in the way that the thought of the _Pack_ dying did. It was the weight of others that hurt. Part of me had died the first time that I phased, because no matter how much I clung to my humanity it was not quite true. I had a wolf in my head and under my skin, and it had ripped my life apart long ago.

“I can’t win this,” I said aloud.

It was almost a relief to say it. Every vampire that I had fought had been offered a chance to kill me; they had just failed. But I could never have said that I didn’t know what I was doing. I had walked into the minefield, and now I’d stepped on a bomb.

All that was left was figuring out how big the blast was going to be.

Janan was still beside me, watching me, something fearful in her eyes. “I can’t take on the Volturi,” I said. No give in the words. “Even with the entire Pack – more like me, the others that I spoke about, but they haven’t fought in years now – I’m not sure that we could. And they will know already who I am. The only question is how long it takes them to find me, presuming that they even come for me first.”

It would take two days to cross the country, and Sonia said I had been here two more. The Volturi could have marshalled their forces and been in the country by now.

“The vampire that I killed. Demetri.” Finally, _finally_ , I turned away to the floor and looked at Janan. I felt old, as if years had settled into my bones while I had been unconscious. Twenty-eight was a joke. “You must have burned him.”

“Yes. I made sure that he was burned before I bought you here.”

“Do you still have his things?”

If the Volturi were going to try to rule the world, even the vampire world, in the twenty-first century then they were going to have to have a grasp of technology. When Janan just nodded cautiously, I pressed further.

“His cell phone. He should have had one, to call back to Italy with what was happening. Shit, I don’t even know why they were _here_. Whether it was for me or you or something else altogether...”

“Why would they be after me?”

It struck me how naïve Janan was sometimes. I couldn’t remember if she had told me how old she was, how long it had been since she was turned, but she had found religion and seemed to really believe that the Volturi would not hurt me. Like hell. Carlisle had said once that the Volturi were something of a necessary force in a world with vampires, that someone had to claim to rule or there would be fighting so widespread that it would pour over into the human world.

Even then, I had noted the _‘in a world with vampires’_ that had been an important part of that sentence. A necessary evil, a dam against the river of vampires in the world. Maybe somewhere deep down I had thought that if I could destroy every vampire that I could come across, they would cease to _be_ necessary.

“They want to destroy anything that could threaten them,” I said. “Vampires like you, who don’t kill humans... it’s like you’re out of their jurisdiction. They don’t like that. They don’t like a lot of things. Can I have the cell, please?”

There were too many words in my head to have to deal with speaking to Janan as well. Whether she understood or not, she nodded, rose, and slipped from the room. I slumped forwards, elbows on my knees, head on my hands. Part of me wanted to cry, but I’ve never been one for that, always found it easier to fight than to flee.

Dying standing, living on your knees, all that crap. I didn’t go in for witty catchphrases, just for doing something, anything, instead of sitting back and letting the world push you around.

Footsteps in the hallway caught my attention, and I looked round to see Sonia framed in the doorway again, hand raised as if to rap on the wood. “Hey,” she said softly. Her voice made me ache, made the realisation that the Volturi would want me dead worse. “Is... everything okay? Your friend went dashing out to your truck.”

“Just going for my cell,” I said. “No problems.”

She nodded, but still didn’t look too convinced. Maybe I wasn’t as good a liar as I thought, or maybe it was just harder to lie to her. The force of the imprint curled around me, not uncomfortable but insistent, and after this it was proving harder to tell what I really thought of her. I got to my feet, slightly unsteadily, and grimaced at the sweat pants and tee that I was wearing. They were mine, presumably from the bag in my truck. I tried to turn around, and the world lurched, sending me stumbling again.

Before I could catch myself, or at least aim my fall towards the bed, Sonia grabbed hold of me and helped me stand upright once again. She was a full head shorter than me, and her hands felt cool, and she smelled all soft and welcoming. I could feel my thoughts clouding.

“Leah!”

“Aftereffects,” I mumbled. I wanted to blurt out the truth, not in the controlled and sensible manner that I had spoken to Julian or Janan, just a big mess of _everything_ that probably wouldn’t make much sense anyway. “It’s a rare thing. There’s only a handful of cases, all in the area that I come from. I’ll be okay again soon.”

“I’m really not sure that you shouldn’t be in hospital,” she said.

“Trust me, it’s easier this way. Doctors just get confused; it’s so rare they usually haven’t heard of it. There’s one specialist back where I live, that’s it.”

“Maybe you should head back there.”

“Yeah, I probably will.” Her hands were still on my upper arms, though I had straightened up, and I wrenched my thoughts and myself away at the same time. I stepped back, pulling my arms back into my sides. “Sorry.” It came out thoughtlessly, and I was not sure what I was apologising for beyond the pained expression on her face.

“I didn’t realise that this would happen, Sonia,” I said in a breathy rush. “That I’d get this attack, or that Janan would freak out and bring me here. I didn’t mean to drag you into anything.”

The wolf, and the force of the imprint, was tugging at my words. It wanted her to give me permission to tell her everything that was going on, and I had to keep a tight hold of myself. As comforting as her presence was, as much as I wanted to be around her, I didn’t like the way that I could feel my control slipping away. The imprint was _intruding_ on me.

“No! No, really, don’t worry about it. My father told me how you helped him, what was it, two years ago? I really never got the chance to thank you properly.”

“Well, I think we can call it quits after this,” I replied. She fidgeted slightly from one foot to the other, lips parting once or twice without words before something finally broke through.

“Leah, I know that I don’t know you very well, but you saved my father once and I can’t help but feel like I can trust you. It’s just that... your friend... I don’t...”

She spread her hands wide, something searching and uncertain in her expression. Again, the urge to _tell her, the truth, everything, now_ rose within me, but I forced it back harder this time. “Janan’s been a really good friend to me.” It surprised me, in fact, how truthful it sounded. Jacob and Seth had disagreed with me at times about how much I _hated_ vampires, how much more determined I was than the rest of them to do what we were obviously created to do. But Janan I could not bring myself to hate, and her actions had worn my suspicion down until I could not help but protect her, even trust her.

That was unsettling as well.

Sonia nodded, but neither of us had time to speak further before Janan reappeared in the room. The cell phone in her hand was modern, though the screen had cracked somewhere along the line. “Oh, Janan,” I said, relief creeping into my voice. “Thank you.”

Somehow, the phone had survived the fight, and was not even password locked. A chill slid down my back as I saw that there were missed calls on it. Somebody had been trying to contact Demetri, or whoever had Demetri’s phone.

“There’s, uh, a call that I need to make.” My throat felt thick, and I thought for one awful moment that it would fail me altogether. Janan was looking at me with sadness; Sonia, with worry. “It’s fine. I just ought to let my doctor know.”

Perhaps my lying had improved at least a bit over the years, because Sonia nodded and, finally, both of them left the room.

The quiet swallowed me up, the first time that I had been alone to think since I had woken up. I sank to the bed, letting my head fall into my hands. It was just too much. I had crossed a line that I had been – perhaps stupidly – ignoring, and the phone in my hand had become the centre of my decision about what to do next.

Option one: destroy the phone. Destroy everything of Demetri’s. Run. Wait for the Volturi to come after me or go after the rest of the Pack. Hope that it was me.

Option two: declare war. Call up every member of the Pack, every vampire that we might be able to sway to our side, and anyone we could think of. Then take the fight to the Volturi, and hope that the aftereffects didn’t kill more of us than the war already had.

Option three: turn myself in. Offer the Volturi the chance to take me in, with no more bloodshed, in exchange for maintaining the peace with the rest of my Pack. My brothers, for all that I hated them sometimes. The men – and boys – who I had fought the newborn army with, who I still cared about enough to check in with them. Hell, killing the Pack would probably leak over into the rest of the Rez, anyone who knew too much or who might carry the genes themselves. My mother, my friends, Emily and Claire and the imprints.

My life, for that of fifty other people, was starting to sound like a good bargain. Bile rose in my throat, and my hand was shaking, but I opened up the number that had last called the phone, and hit call.

I closed my eyes as I raised the phone to my ear. It seemed to take forever for the first, the second ring, and then it was picked up.

_“Hello, Ms. Clearwater.”_

I might not have had a perfect memory, but I remembered that voice from all of those years ago. When you are waiting on one person to say whether you and your Pack are going to be allowed to live, or whether everyone there is going to try to kill you, you remember that person’s voice.

“Hello, Aro,” I replied.

He laughed, a bright sound that set my teeth on edge. _“Very good. I was waiting for you to pick up. You know what you’ve done, of course, so the only question that remains... is what you are going to do now.”_

“I’ll be at LA International airport by sunset.” I didn’t have the time to get further away, but hopefully it would be enough that Sonia would not be found. She, of all people, I wanted to keep safe: not just for the imprint, but because she didn’t know. Even by the Volturi’s rules, she was an innocent in this. “Alone, unarmed for all that matters.”

Another of his laughs. I gritted my teeth, but my nerve held.

“Have one of your people meet me there, then we can go somewhere else to finish this.”

_“Oh, my dear, you sell yourself short if you think I’ll have one of my guards kill you in some airport on the far side of the world. No, no, I do think that I’d rather speak to you myself...”_

He trailed off, as if another thought had distracted him, or as if he was dangling the words in front of me. “An offer I can’t refuse? Isn’t that a bit of a cliché?”

_“Well, perhaps, but I’d rather not stoop to the levels of threats and... indelicacies. Los Angeles International Airport, sunset. Which I believe should be ten forty-two your timezone. Don’t be late, Ms. Clearwater. And please do try to leave the rest of Felix’s face intact this time.”_

The phone line went dead, and I was left with silence in my ears and a sickness in my stomach. After all, my death sentence could only have been delayed. I lowered the phone, glanced over at the clock, and tried not to kid myself that I expected anything other than the worst.

 

 

 

 

 

My name is Leah Clearwater. I'm a werewolf, and I kill vampires.

And it looks like this is where it ends.


End file.
